Digitisation and Sustainable Development: The Opportunities and Risks of Using Digital Technologies for the Implementation of a Circular Economy

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-23
Author(s):  
Benjamin Kottmeyer
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Social Outcomes ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Critical Social

Digitisation is developing a transformational potential that is profoundly changing people, our societies and the planet. Like any major societal transformation, it offers both, significant opportunities for progress and significant risks with harmful consequences for societies. This paper, therefore, addresses the question: ‘What are the critical social outcomes and concerns flowing from the advances in digitisation on our work environment?’ To discuss the broad research question in sufficient depth, this paper focuses not only on specific critical social outcomes of digitisation but also on how some of them can be mitigated by combining digital tools with the concept of a circular economy (representing the abstract idea of sustainable development). The implementation of blockchain technologies and new business models shows that digital technologies have the potential to close the realisation gap between theory and practice of the circular economy concept by enhancing the information flow and the communication between stakeholders in the value chain. Nonetheless, the implementation of these technologies also entails social and economic risks, such as power abuse or regulatory arbitrage, which should be considered in advance. To avoid jeopardising digital innovations, future research should therefore develop a more holistic and interdisciplinary understanding of the complex interactions to exploit the potential of digitisation for social progress.

“Enabling circular business models in the fashion industry: the role of digital innovation”

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phuc Hong Huynh
Keyword(s):  
Business Model ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Chain Model ◽  
Fashion Industry ◽  
Digital Innovation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Radical Innovations

PurposeDigital innovation and circular business model innovation are two critical enablers of a circular economy. A wide variety of digital technologies such as blockchain, 3D printing, cyber-physical systems, or big data also diverges the applications of digital technologies in circular business models. Given heterogeneous attributes of circular business models and digital technologies, the selections of digital technologies and circular business models might be highly distinctive within and between sectorial contexts. This paper examines digital circular business models in the context of the fashion industry and its multiple actors. This industry as the world’s second polluting industry requires an urgent circular economy (CE) transition with less resource consumption, lower waste emissions and a more stable economy.Design/methodology/approachAn inductive, exploratory multiple-case study method is employed to investigate the ten cases of different sized fashion companies (i.e. large, small medium-sized firm (SME) and startup firms). The comparison across cases is conducted to understand fashion firms' distinct behaviours in adopting various digital circular economy strategies.FindingsThe paper presents three archetypes of digital-based circular business models in the fashion industry: the blockchain-based supply chain model, the service-based model and the pull demand-driven model. Besides incremental innovations, the radical business model and digital innovations as presented in the pull demand-driven model may be crucial to the fashion circular economy transition. The pull demand–driven model may shift the economy from scales to scopes, change the whole process of how the fashion items are forecasted, produced, and used, and reform consumer behaviours. The paths of adopting digital fashion circular business models are also different among large, SMEs and startup fashion firms.Practical implicationsThe study provides business managers with empirical insights on how circular business models (CBMs) should be chosen according to intrinsic business capacities, technological competences and CE strategies. The emerging trends of new fashion markets (e.g. rental, subscription) and consumers' sustainable awareness should be not be neglected. Moreover, besides adopting recycling and reuse strategies, large fashion incumbents consider collaborating with other technology suppliers and startup companies to incubate more radical innovations.Social implicationsAppropriate policies and regulations should be enacted to enable the digital CE transition. Market patterns and consumer acceptances are considered highly challenging to these digital fashion models. A balanced policy on both the demand and supply sides are suggested. The one-side policy may fail CBMs that entail an upside-down collaboration of both producers and consumers. Moreover, it is perhaps time to rethink how to reduce unnecessary new demand rather than repeatedly producing and recycling.Originality/valueThe pace of CE research is lagging far behind the accelerating environmental contamination by the fashion industry. The study aims to narrow the gap between theory and practice to harmonise fashion firms' orchestration and accelerate the transition of the fashion industry towards the CE. This study examines diverse types of digital technologies in different circular business models in a homogeneous context of the fashion industry with heterogeneous firm types.

Circular Economy and Circular Business Models in the Actual Global Ecological Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 178-197
Author(s):  
Dana Maria (Oprea) Constantin ◽  
Sorinel Căpușneanu ◽  
Dan Ioan Topor ◽  
Hassan Danial Aslam
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Ecological Context ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

This chapter aims to synthesize some of the current issues of the circular economy and circular business models. Based on the international literature, the chapter highlights aspects such as the conceptual theoretical approaches of the circular economy and circular business models, interconnecting the principles of the circular economy, the difference between the linear and the circular economy, the circular economy and the sustainable development, the supply chain within the circular economy, possible business models of the circular economy, advantages and limitations in the successful implementation of the circular economy and supporting sustainability, other aspects of the circular economy and sustainability. The covered topics are based on the studies conducted by specialists and also present some author opinions on the sustainable development and circular economy. The chapter ends with the authors' conclusions on the impact of the circular economy and circular business models in the actual ecological context, launching possible future research topics for specialists.

scholarly journals The Leading Digital Technology Companies and Their Approach to Sustainable Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6612
Author(s):  
Peter Jones ◽  
Martin Wynn
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Sustainable Future

The increasingly stellar attraction of the digital technologies and the growing, though not universal, consensus of the need to build a sustainable future, are two powerful trends within society. The aim of this article is to offer an exploratory review of how the leading companies within the digital transformation market have addressed sustainable development. As such, the article’s originality and value lie in offering a review of current corporate thinking within that market. The study adopts an inductive, qualitative approach based on an examination of published company reports, and identifies six major sustainability themes being actively promoted and supported. The article concludes that the current sustainability objectives of the technology companies are driven as much by commercial reality as any altruistic motives, and that support and promotion of the circular economy may offer the best opportunity for digital technologies to meaningfully impact sustainable development.

Emerging trends in digital transformation: a bibliometric analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raghu Nandan Chawla ◽  
Praveen Goyal
Keyword(s):  
Bibliometric Analysis ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Citation Network ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Intellectual Structure ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Areas

PurposeUbiquitous digital technologies are driving organisations to embrace non-traditional digitally transformed business models incessantly. Heterogeneous literature contributions have resulted in a spur in the research related to business transformation driven by digital technologies in recent years; consequently, the research under the digital transformation (DT), even though becoming a hotspot, remains very fragmented. The authors endeavour to holistically present the literature's intellectual structure under DT as a concept, its evolving journey and the emerging research streams in the business and management domains using the techniques of bibliometric analysis.Design/methodology/approachBy performing bibliometric analysis on 234 research articles published over the last 20 years in the DT domain, retrieved from Thompson Reuters Web of Science TM, this study culls out thorough insights from the citation, co-citation and keyword analysis. Further emerging research streams were evaluated using VOSviewer software.FindingsThe study depicts an overall incremental trend of year-on-year publications, authors' performance, publication journals, associated institutions and research driving countries, along with key insights from co-citation network analysis. Furthermore, the study evaluates four research areas – organisational impacts, applied applications and insights, operational processes and social aspects, comprising eighteen research streams that comprehensively cover-up research under the DT domain.Research limitations/implicationsThe study contributes to the literature of DT by amalgamating the status of the present research, but more importantly, by deriving the research areas and research streams, which can be further expanded by researchers as future research streams.Practical implicationsFor the practitioners, the study aims to act as a ready reckoner repository with practice-oriented literature references to facilitate them building knowledge and taking effective strategic decisions to harness the benefits of DT more proficiently.Originality/valueThis study illustrates the bibliometric structure of the DT literature and presents insights from the growth of the literature year-on-year.

Responsible entrepreneurship: outlining the contingencies

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 538-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Vallaster ◽  
Sascha Kraus ◽  
Norbert Kailer ◽  
Brooke Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Responsible Innovation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
Sustainable Business ◽  
Society Business ◽  
Content Type

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to give an up-to-date assessment of key topics and methods discussed in the current literature on responsible entrepreneurship. In the past years, sustainable development itself has become a more popular and important topic in the academic literature and hence the field of sustainable entrepreneurship has become a greater topic of interest and opportunity for solution. Therefore, a systematic literature review is conducted to assess new contributions to the field and its potential for the future of sustainable development, with a focus on responsible innovation.Design/methodology/approachSystematic, evidence-informed literature review following Tranfieldet al.(2003).FindingsBased on a conceptual literature review, five streams of research that responsible entrepreneurs distinguish from purely for-profit entrepreneurs are identified and discussed: walking the line between profit creation and value creation for society; business models of responsible entrepreneurs; their role in transforming society; getting ready to innovate responsibly; and the role of market incentives to foster sustainable business practices.Originality/valueThe structured literature review allows to identify future research paths. In detail, ideas as regards the management of upcoming tensions when trying to combine profit creation and value creation for society, and finally, the way innovation processes need to be rethought when innovating responsibly are discussed and outlined.

Innovative Business Models in Digital Firms

2020 ◽  
pp. 79-98
Author(s):  
Patrizia Accordino ◽  
Tindara Abbate ◽  
Daniela Rupo ◽  
Raffaella Coppolino ◽  
Elvira Tiziana La Rocca
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Service Innovation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
Use Of Services ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
New Perspective

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development intends to improve efforts of governments, societies, and companies to deal with major social and environmental problems affecting contemporary societies. From a business perspective, companies can find a propulsive boost of innovation looking at different models of production and use of services/products. This new perspective is radically changing the ways companies and consumers interact, and the role of companies in supporting the achievement of SDGs through service innovation is becoming pervasive. In addition, the emerging digital economy represents a great opportunity opening up to sustainability-oriented service innovation and firms are developing their competitive advantage based on the introduction of new digital business models. This chapter explores this issue through an explorative case study based on the MyTaxi business model. Implications for managers and researchers and opportunities for future research are highlighted.

scholarly journals PERCEPTION OF COMPETITIVENESS IN THE CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: FACETS OF “SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVENESS”

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audronė Balkytė ◽  
Manuela Tvaronavičienė
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Europe 2020 ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
The One ◽  
Research Initiatives

European Council agreed to the European Commission's proposal to launch a new strategy for jobs and growth ‐ the new European Union strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth ‐ “Europe 2020”. This will lead to a new concept of the competitiveness and deeper relationship between sustainable development and competitiveness. The aim of this article is to set out the future research area of competitiveness theory taking into account the development of competitiveness concept and existing research tendencies. On the one hand, for developing the new concept of competitiveness, it is necessary to critically analyse existing studies on competitiveness. Researchers, examining the problems of competitiveness, differently approach the concept of competitiveness, suggesting different definitions, classification, factors, models of competitiveness, and evaluation criteria. Despite all the discussions on competitiveness however, no clear definition or model of competitiveness has yet been developed. On the other hand, globalization, economic dynamism and social progress, sustainability and competitiveness go hand‐in‐hand. Competitiveness should be underpinned by a broad vision for the economy and society. There is a need of research initiatives to develop the new concept of “Sustainable competitiveness” in the context of globalisation, with much of the research focusing on how sustainable development and competitiveness interact. Such additional research will lead to new theoretical models describing the relationships between international globalization, economic growth, sustainable development, wellbeing and competitiveness. Santrauka Europos Vadovu Taryba pritare Europos Komisij os pasiūlytai ekonomikos augimo ir darbo vietu kūrimo strategijai ‐ “Europa 2020” ‐ naujai Europos Sajungos strategijai del pažangaus, tvaraus ir integruoto augimo. Tai sudaro prielaidas naujai konkurencingumo sampratai ir gilesniam darnaus vystymosi ir konkurencingumo saryšiui. Šio straipsnio tikslas yra nustatyti tolesniu konkurencingumo teorijos tyrimu sriti, atsižvelgiant i konkurencingumo koncepcijos pletra ir egzistuojančias moksliniu tyrimu tendencijas. Iš vienos puses, siekiant pletoti konkurencingumo teorija, būtina kritiškai ivertinti egzistuojančias konkurencingumo studijas. Mokslininkai, nagrinedami konkurencingumo problematika, pateikia ivairias konkurencingumo koncepcijas, siūlydami skirtingus apibrežimus, klasifikacija_, veiksnius, konkurencingumo modelius ir vertinimo kriterijus. Nepaisant plačiu diskusiju, kol kas nera susitarta del aiškaus konkurencingumo apibrežimo ar visuotinai pripažistamo modelio. Iš kitos puses, globalizacija, ekonomikos dinamiškumas ir socialine pažanga, darnus vystymasis ir konkurencingumas yra tarpusavyje glaudžiai susije. Plati ekonomikos ir visuomenes vizija turetu būti konkurencingumo pagrindas. Egzistuojantis moksliniu tyrimuporeikis veda link naujos "darnaus kon‐kurencingumo” koncepcijos kūrimo iniciatyvu, ivertinant globalizacija ir daugiau demesio skiriant dar‐naus vystymosi bei konkurencingumo tarpusavio ryšiams. Tokie tolesni tyrimai padetu atrasti naujus teorinius modelius, charakterizuojančius tarptautines globalizacijos, ekonomikos augimo, darnaus vystymosi, geroves kūrimo ir konkurencingumo saryši.

scholarly journals How to Carry out the Transition towards a More Circular Tourist Activity in the Hotel Sector. The Role of Innovation

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Florido ◽  
Marta Jacob ◽  
Margarita Payeras
Keyword(s):  
Circular Economy ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Tourism Destination ◽  
Circular Model ◽  
Tourism Sector ◽  
Great Pressure ◽  
Hotel Sector

Tourism causes important environmental impacts and can generate great pressure on local resources, such as land, water, energy and food, generating large amounts of waste, as well as problems of congestion, noise and air pollution. The circular economy is presented as an alternative model to the linear model, which recognizes the fundamental role of the environment, its functions and the interaction between the environment and the economic system. The hotel sector and the tourism sector in general, have been criticized for not adequately addressing environmental problems and global warming. In order to carry out the transition to a circular economy (CE), it is essential to innovate in business models, designing a circular business model. The objective of this work is to design guidelines on possible actions and opportunities that allow us to carry out a successful transition towards a circular model in hotel companies, as well as to design a model for this transition in a tourism destination, analyzing the roles of the different agents in this transition. Findings identified the main opportunities and benefits of this transition in the hotel sector and describes a three-axis model to carry out this transition in a tourism destination, identifying the roles of public administrations and DMOs, resident population and the tourism sector. Future research implications are also discussed.

scholarly journals Beyond unsustainable leadership: critical social theory for sustainable leadership

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jem Bendell ◽  
Neil Sutherland ◽  
Richard Little
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Sustainable Leadership ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Critical Leadership ◽  
Critical Leadership Studies ◽  
Critical Social

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to prepare the conceptual groundwork for the future study of leadership for sustainable development. The paper demonstrates the relevance of Critical Leadership Studies to future research on sustainable development policies and practices. A critical approach is also applied to concepts of sustainable development, with three paradigms of thought described. Design/methodology/approach The approach taken is an extensive literature review in fields of leadership and sustainable development, with a focus on some of the broad assumptions and assertions in those literatures. Findings A key finding is that leadership studies drawing from critical social theory can provide important insights into future research and education on leadership for sustainability. This literature shows that some assumptions about leadership may hinder opportunities for social or organisational change by reducing the analysis of factors in change or reducing the agency of those not deemed to be leading. These limitations are summarised as “seven unsustainabilities” of mainstream leadership research. Research limitations/implications The paper calls for the emerging field of sustainable leadership to develop an understanding of significant individual action that includes collective, emergent and episodic dimensions. The paper then summarises key aspects of the papers in this special issue on leadership for sustainability. Practical implications The implications for practice are that efforts to promote organisational contributions to sustainable development should not uncritically draw upon mainstream approaches to leadership or the training of leaders. Originality/value The authors consider this the first paper to provide a synthesis of insights from Critical Leadership Studies for research in sustainability.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document