The Impact of Digital Technologies and Sustainable Practices on Circular Supply Chain Management

Sara Romagnoli, Claudia Tarabu', Behzad Maleki Vishkaei and Pietro De Giovanni ()
Additional contact information
Sara Romagnoli: Department of Business and Management, Luiss University, 00197 Rome, Italy
Claudia Tarabu': Department of Business and Management, Luiss University, 00197 Rome, Italy
Behzad Maleki Vishkaei: Department of Business and Management, Luiss University, 00197 Rome, Italy
Pietro De Giovanni: Department of Business and Management, Luiss University, 00197 Rome, Italy

Logistics, 2023, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Background : This study investigates how firms can enhance the functionality of their circular supply chains (CSCs) by adopting a portfolio of sustainable practices as well as digital technologies to increase performance. It analyzes the benefits that firms can obtain when investing in specific technologies to boost the impact of technologies and sustainable practices on CSCs, and further increase performance. Methods: We test several hypotheses by using structural equation modeling as well as multi-group analysis to verify whether CSCs can be achieved through sustainable practices and technologies and improve the firms’ performance. Results: The empirical results partially support the research hypotheses. While the main research hypotheses are fully supported, the analysis of single digital technologies reveals that only a few solutions can contribute to both the management and the improvement of the CSC. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that the identification of green suppliers and ad hoc environmental regulations, combined with attention to the origin and provenance of raw materials, can promote a CSC. Moreover, transportation management systems (TMS) and the internet of things (IoT) are efficient technologies for managing transportation and product flow in the CSC. Furthermore, machine learning (ML) is effective in making positive green decisions, and 3D printing can extend product life.

Keywords: circular economy; circular supply chain; sustainable practices; digital technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L8 L80 L81 L86 L87 L9 L90 L91 L92 L93 L98 L99 M1 M10 M11 M16 M19 R4 R40 R41 R49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/7/1/1/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/7/1/1/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlogis:v:7:y:2023:i:1:p:1-:d:1023394

Access Statistics for this article

Logistics is currently edited by Ms. Mavis Li

More articles in Logistics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().