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Data Platforms as Tools for Circular Economy

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EcoDesign for Sustainable Products, Services and Social Systems I

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Abstract

Climate change and other urgent environmental challenges necessitate system-level solutions and quick actions. The linear business models of taking, making and disposing are not sustainable and further contribute to the systemic changes. Our economy needs to adopt circular principles. Data and digitalization can provide the leap forward for the sustainable next generation circular and sustainable business models and solutions. Based on 29 in-depth stakeholder interviews in the battery value chain, we report practical circular economy (CE) data drivers, needs, and opportunities, and discuss the role of data platforms and their ecosystems as the new means of circular value creation, as well as challenges in large-scale data utilization. The key drivers for extending data use in CE were customer pull for transparency and sustainability, regulation, and compliance, product traceability to manage a sustainable supply chain, and improving product and process sustainability and efficiency. Two shared development topics were identified through the value chain by different stakeholders: side stream management and implementing traceability. Both of these themes require tight collaboration in the ecosystem and through the value chain, and the solutions could be built on data platforms. Overall, based on the findings, the vision and/or know-how for impactful data utilization is yet to be discovered. The role of data, the rules for data use, and the opportunities are still unclear in the field. The current platform initiatives, such as the battery passport, are designed to collect battery data upstream from the user and not include downstream use data collection. We suggest that the market and stakeholders would benefit from use data as a new element. These data would provide benefits for the manufacturers to prolong the product lifecycles, promote safe use and disposal of batteries and enable new business models (lifetime extension, product-as-a-service, recycling). This study proposes the establishment of a battery ecosystem operating on a hybrid platform (supporting innovation and transactions), established around co-creation and based on the Battery Passport data, with low entry barriers for any startups or SMEs, to enable data-driven business.

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Acknowledgements

This paper communicates findings from the ongoing Circular Design Network project funded by the Academy of Finland (2020–2022). The paper is based on interviews conducted by a cross-organizational team of the project partners: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Aalto University, Geological Survey of Finland, Natural Resources Institute, and Finnish Environmental Institute. The authors thank all the researchers involved for their data collection and initial data encoding efforts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sustainable Products and Materials, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland

    Inka Orko

  2. Smart Energy and Built Environment, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland

    Rita Lavikka

Authors
  1. Inka Orko
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  2. Rita Lavikka
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Inka Orko .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Creative Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Shinichi Fukushige

  2. Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Osaka, Japan

    Hideki Kobayashi

  3. College of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Shiga, Japan

    Eiji Yamasue

  4. Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan

    Keishiro Hara

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© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Orko, I., Lavikka, R. (2023). Data Platforms as Tools for Circular Economy. In: Fukushige, S., Kobayashi, H., Yamasue, E., Hara, K. (eds) EcoDesign for Sustainable Products, Services and Social Systems I. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3818-6_14

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