Mapping Current Research for Eco-Efficient and Circular Industrial Systems

Paper in proceeding, 2024

With the growing sense of urgency to tackle climate change and other environmental issues, integrating sustainability as a central component of production research and industrial practice is imperative. Eco-efficiency and circular economy are powerful concepts to guide actions as a response to these environmental concerns. To encourage the uptake of these concepts in research and development, a thematic research framework for eco-efficient and circular industrial systems was proposed in 2022. This framework is composed of ten priority areas with more specific challenges captured in the form of research questions to call for collaborative research efforts. To map current research against these challenges and priority areas, a survey was launched to reach out to experts from different overlapping research themes within the research community in the field of production management: operations management, supply/value networks, technological development, business development, human factors, and performance management. This paper presents the initial survey results based on 50 responses to investigate which priority areas are being addressed by this community, as well as point to avenues for further work to support the transition to more sustainable industrial systems. Finally, we conclude that there is a need to better engage manufacturing companies to address sustainability challenges, exploiting tools and methods available in the literature to make sustainability become the new industrial norm.