A Survey of General Ontologies for the Cross-Industry Domain of Circular Economy

Circular Economy has the goal to reduce value loss and avoid waste by extending the life span of materials and products, including circulating materials or product parts before they become waste. Circular economy models (e.g., circular value networks) are typically complex and networked, involving different cross-industry domains. In the context of a circular value network, multiple actors, such as suppliers, manufacturers, recyclers, and product end-users, may be involved. In addition, there may be various flows of resources, energy, information and value throughout the network. This means that we face the challenge that the data and information from cross-industry domains in a circular economy model are not built on common ground, and as a result are difficult to understand and use for both humans and machines. Using ontologies to represent domain knowledge can enable actors and stakeholders from different industries in the circular economy to communicate using a common language. The knowledge domains involved include circular economy, sustainability, materials, products, manufacturing, and logistics. The objective of this paper is to investigate the landscape of current ontologies for these domains. This will enable us to in the future explore what existing knowledge can be adapted or used to develop ontologies for circular value networks.