A digital platform for cross-sector collaborative value networks in the circular economy

Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing interest in Circular Economy (CE), which promises to reduce waste and improve sustainability. The promise of CE is to change the conventional “take–make–dispose” that causes massive waste flows based on the integration of demanufacturing and remanufacturing processes within value chains. This integration requires breaking the ”silos” of the circular chain to establish new collaborative and sustainable value networks. The paper introduces a novel digital platform for the CE, which is currently under development in the H2020 DigiPrime project. The platform is destined to facilitate seamless and trusted information exchange across circular actors, while offering a range of value-added services that enable manufacturers, remanufactures, recyclers and other actors to gain insights in the status of recycling and waste management processes. The latter facilitates the implementation of zero waste processes, along with the assessment of the performance of the circular chain. The paper introduces the architecture of the digital platform, along with its data modelling, exchange and data traceability mechanisms. It also presents a CE use case used to validate the platform.