Disruptive Technology-Enabled Circular Economy for Improving the Sustainability of the Supply Chain

Abstract

Most industries are faced with the challenges of how the supply chain can be made sustainable with the assistance from digital technology and circular economy (CE). A survey has been carried out to review the involvement of disruptive technology (DT) and CE in certain sections of supply chain system and identify a clear path that need to be routed to best integrate sustainable practices in the industries to make supply chain more sustainable. Some of the major barrier factors identified are funding support, availability, and technological expertise or ‘know how', and management and policy regulation to implement CE and DT in supply chain management (SCM) to make it more sustainable. It also showed some of the adjustments that need to be made especially in developing countries before introducing the practices of sustainable SCM. When scrutinizing the entire process of SCM and its members, it shows that a single component of SCM cannot implement CE in isolation; it requires collective effort from all members of the supply chain, which is facilitated by integration of DT.