The need of undertaking effective actions against the climate change is pushing industrial companies to find new business models and technological solutions to reduce the resource utilization and the waste production. In this context, several companies are moving towards servitization, that has been proved as a promising strategy to enable sustainable business models in a wide spectrum, namely encompassing environmental, economic and social aspects. Nevertheless, companies lacks of tools for evaluating different servitization models with a clear view of economic and environmental benefits. This paper presents a model to estimate the profitability of servitization opportunities by combining economic Net Present Value index and environmental impacts estimation. The model is targeted on the steel sector, for which a preliminary application has been developed and is discussed in the paper. The results show that adopting different servitization business models, several benefits could be exploited both from providers and customers.

This article explores the impact of Additive Manufacturing (AM) on business models in the context of manufacturing sustainability. We define two new standards of sustainable business models enabled by AM and discuss their potential advantages in addressing specific manufacturing challenges. The technological advancements brought about by AM have significantly influenced the manufacturing industry, fostering innovation and reshaping market structures and value-creation processes. Notably, AM contributes to sustainability by reducing material waste and transportation costs, establishing itself as a low-impact manufacturing technology. While AM is not positioned to entirely replace traditional manufacturing processes, organizations can leverage its integration with these processes to catalyze business model innovation. To expand the market for AM technologies, it is crucial to examine AM not only from a process and technology perspective but also in terms of its ability to eliminate the need for tooling and dies, which are typically produced through energy-intensive methods. Advanced manufacturing techniques can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and time to market, demonstrating AM's potential energy-saving benefits across various sectors.

In the current state of the art, textile products and materials generate a significant environmental impact since they are not managed under a circular economy paradigm. It is urgent to define new sustainable paths in the textiles industry by setting up materials, technologies, processes, and business models to reuse and recycle textiles production waste and End-of-Life textiles. In this direction, taking advantage of textile-related materials, especially from renewable and waste resources, for depollution purposes appears very promising since it enables re-use, but it also supports secondary applications with a high sustainability impact. This review collects and describes possible adsorption, filtration and purification capabilities of (i) various functionalized textiles, (ii) biopolymers constituting the natural fibers (cellulose, keratin, fibroin) and (iii) textile-derived active carbons and biochar, in order to provide a structured framework for the systemic exploitation of the depollution potential of waste textiles. The correlations among the type of textile materials, the physical-chemical treatments, and the characteristics influencing the performances of such materials as decontaminating tools will be underlined.

Circular economy (CE) implementation requires the transition from linear business models (BMs) to circular ones, with related uncertainties and multi-disciplinary risks, which often discourage organisations. However, there is still a lack of understanding of risks associated with this process. This work thus aims to identify, classify and prioritise key risk factors for innovative circular BMs in order to enable the development of appropriate risk management strategies. A fuzzy Delphi method was tailored to assess the risk factors obtained from the literature and was applied to the industrial case of composite materials. 24 major risk factors for innovative circular BMs were identified and classified into six categories. The probability and impact of the risk factors were evaluated by experts and the risk factors were then ranked by calculating their risk scores. The resultant major risks appeared to be related to the external context in which organisations operate. Among those risks, the greatest were those generated by take back systems and low customers' acceptance of CE products. This research is the first to address risks for circularity in a structured way and contributes to the field of CE by providing an extensive list and classification of risk factors for innovative circular BMs as they are perceived by industry, acting as a reference for academics and practitioners. Furthermore, it provides the first evaluation and prioritisation of risk factors within the CE domain, highlighting critical risks within the specific industrial context of composite materials and suggesting action priorities for the establishment of circular BMs.

The market for electrical vehicles (EVs) is expected to show constant growth in the next years. However, Europe is not prepared to manage such a massive flow of electric vehicles at the End-of-Life (EoL). Consolidated value chains including recyclers, remanufacturers, and dismantlers able to treat key parts of EVs efficiently and safely at the EoL (such as batteries) do not exist at the needed industrial scale due to their novelty and complexity which requires innovative technologies and methods. Furthermore, the huge uncertainty on the volume of parts, their EoL conditions, materials cost fluctuations, and market acceptability discourage companies from starting new recycling/remanufacturing businesses. This carries the risk of delaying the consolidation of European value chains specialized in the EoL management of EVs. In order to address these challenges, the present research, which was carried out in the frame of the H2020 “CarE-Service” European-funded project, proposes a new circular business model for the EoL management of EVs.

The explosive growth of the global market for Carbon-Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) and the lack of a closing loop strategy of composite waste have raised environmental concerns. Circular economy studies, including Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC), have investigated composite recycling and new bio-based materials to substitute both carbon fibers and matrices. However, few studies have addressed composite repair. Studies focused on bio-based composites coupled with recycling and repairing are also lacking. Within this framework, the paper aims at presenting opportunities and challenges of the new thermosetting composite developed at the laboratory including the criteria of repairing, recycling, and use of bio-based materials in industrial applications through an ex ante LCA coupled with LCC. Implementing the three criteria mentioned above would reduce the environmental impact from 50% to 86% compared to the baseline scenario with the highest benefits obtained by implementing the only repairing. LCC results indicate that manufacturing and repairing parts built from bio-based CFRP is economically sustainable. However, recycling can only be economically sustainable under a specific condition. Managerial strategies are proposed to mitigate the uncertainties of the recycling business. The findings of this study can provide valuable guidance on supporting decisions for companies making strategic plans.

Metals represent about the 60-70% of vehicles weight. At the End of Life, after the disassembly of dangerous and some re-usable and recyclable parts, metals are scrapped and melted, with significant energy consumption. Innovative cold-reforming and joining technologies, coupled with systems to retrieve material information, can allow a second life before melting through remanufacturing. This would open the way to new circular business models in automotive providing added-value to customers as well as new market opportunities for OEMs. This paper investigates the potential of these approaches, as the results of the European H2020 “CarE-Service” project.

Carbon fiber composite materials are intensively used in many manufacturing domains such as aerospace, aviation, marine, automation and civil industries due to their excellent strength, corrosion resistance, and lightweight properties. However, their increased use requires a conscious awareness of their entire life cycle and not only of their manufacturing. Therefore, to reduce waste and increase sustainability, reparation, reuse, or recycling are recommended in case of defects and wear. This can be largely improved with reliable and efficient non-destructive defect detection techniques; those are able to identify damages automatically for quality control inspection, supporting the definition of the best circular economy options. Hyperspectral imaging techniques provide unique features for detecting physical and chemical alterations of any material and, in this study, it is proposed to identify the constitutive material and classify local defects of composite specimens. A Middle Wave Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging (MWIR-HSI) system, able to capture spectral signatures of the specimen surfaces in a range of wavelengths between 2.6757 and 5.5056 µm, has been used. The resulting signatures feed a deep neural network with three convolutional layers that filter the input and isolate data-driven features of high significance. A complete experimental case study is presented to validate the methodology, leading to an average classification accuracy of 93.72

AbstractThe growing use of composites in various industries such as aerospace, automotive and wind turbine has increased environmental concerns regarding their waste disposal methods. Deploying circular economy practices to reuse composites could play a crucial role in the future. In this regard, this chapter addresses the development and implementation of new business models for composites re-use, as fundamental enabler for the industrial exploitation and diffusion of technological and methodological innovations developed in the FiberEUse project. Seven products were chosen as representatives for composites reuse application in four industrial sectors: sanitary, sports equipment, furniture and automotive. Re-use business models are presented describing their value proposition, with particular reference to the provision of advanced product-service bundles, the revenue models (including schemes such as leasing), as well as new supply chain configurations entailing new partnership between producers and recyclers to access post-use composites to re-use. Given the importance of reverse supply networks, the potential reverse logistics pathways for mechanical recycling of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP), thermal recycling of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) and remanufacturing of CF composites waste in Europe for 2020 and 2050 have been investigated. We concluded that the optimal reverse logistics network needs to be decentralized in more than one country in Europe. Therefore, it is suggested that policy makers address regulation to allow the transportation of waste between European countries to facilitate the development of recycling networks for composites reuse.

Background: A better understanding of food-related behaviour and its determinants can be achieved through harmonisation and linking of the various data-sources and knowledge platforms. Scope: We describe the key decision-making in the development of a prototype of the Determinants and Intake Platform (DI Platform), a data platform that aims to harmonise and link data on consumer food behaviour. It will be part of the Food Nutrition Health Research Infrastructure (FNH-RI) that will facilitate health, social and food sciences. Approach: The decision-making was based on the evidence of user needs and data characteristics that guided the specification of the key building blocks of the DI Platform. Eight studies were carried out, including consumer online survey; interview studies of key DI Platform stakeholders; desk research and workshops. Key findings: Consumers were most willing to share data with universities, then industry and government. Trust, risk perception and altruism predicted willingness to share. For most other stakeholders non-proprietary data was most likely to be shared. Lack of data standards, and incentives for sharing were the main barriers for sharing data among the key stakeholders. The value of various data types would hugely increase if linked with other sources. Finding the right balance between optimizing data sharing and minimizing ethical and legal risks was considered a key challenge. Conclusions: The development of DI Platform is based on careful balancing of the user, technical, business, legal and ethical requirements, following the FAIR principles and the need for financial sustainability, technical flexibility, transparency and multi-layered organisational governance.

Within CarE-Service project, all the post-use treatment steps enabling a Circular Economy approach are being investigated by collaboration of partners from STIIMA-CNR and Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) , in order to develop innovative processes and technologies. Through the battery recovery plan project receives the battery supply supports from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) the OEM project partner. The facilitation of reuse and remanufacturing activities started with the analysis of disassembly tasks by Joint Research Center (JRC) and Envirobat Espana expertise and know-how knowledge, creating Standard Operational Sheets to support a human-robot collaboration during battery dismantling from pack level all the way to individual cells.

Mission-oriented policies have been proposed for research and innovation in the European manufacturing industry to address grand challenges while fostering economic growth and employment. A mission is required to have clear goals that can be demonstrated also to a wide public, therefore research and innovation infrastructures play a key role to create the necessary conditions. Given the fundamental importance of public investment to promote innovation, possible funding mechanisms for industrial research and innovation are discussed. Furthermore, taking advantage of the experience gained during the Italian Flagship Project Factories of the Future, this chapter identifies three types of industrial research and innovation infrastructure that can support mission-oriented policies: lab-scale pilot plants, industrial-scale pilot plants, and lighthouse plants.

The demand for key metals for the production of high-tech products is constantly growing in Europe, leading to relevant problems both in terms of supply risks and costs. Waste from Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is growing very fast in Europe, with an annual increase rate between 3 and 5%. Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), which are embedded in electric and electronics products, are very valuable waste products, since they are composed also of precious metals and key metals (about 25-30%). Recycling of PCBs is a very challenging task that has not been solved yet: recycling rates for traditional metals are around 30-35% and many critical key metals, as well as the non metal fraction, are not recycled. This work proposes a set of solutions to be adopted towards the automated zero-waste treatment of PCBs. They address selective disassembly of PCBs components, mechanical pre-treatments, chemical processes for the characterisation of metals material content of PCBs, as well as for the recycling of their non-metal fraction. New business models are finally proposed for the uptake of such solutions in a framework of integrated recycling chain.

Materials recycling is a key process to close the loop of materials in the direction of circular economy. However, the variability of waste and the high volatility of the price of recovered materials are posing serious challenges to the current rigid design of mechanical recycling systems. This is particularly true for Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), whose volume is growing more than other waste streams in Europe due to the diffusion of electronic products and to their short technology cycles. This study is aimed at the development of new flexible recycling systems through the implementation of a Hyper Spectral Imaging system and a simulation model enabling the real-time characterisation of shredded particles and the dynamic optimisation of process parameters for efficient sorting. A hardware and software prototype was realised and tested at theDe- and Re-manufacturing pilot plant of CNR-STIIMA. The positive economic impact of flexible recycling systems enabled by new technologies was assessed through scenario analysis.

This chapter investigates research priorities for factories of the future by adopting an approach based on mission-oriented policies to support manufacturing innovation. Missions are challenging from a scientific and technological point of view and, at the same time, are addressing problems and providing results that are understandable by common people. Missions are based on clear targets that can help mitigating grand challenges. Based on the results of the Italian Flagship Project Factories of the Future, this chapter proposes seven missions while identifying the societal impact, the technological and industrial challenges, and the barriers to be overcome. These missions cover topics such as circular economy, rapid and sustainable industrialisation, robotic assistant, factories for personalised medicine, internet of actions, factories close to the people, and turning ideas into products. The accomplishment of missions asks for the support of a proper research environment in terms of infrastructures to test and demonstrate the results to a wide public. Research infrastructures together with funding mechanisms will be better addressed in the next chapter of this book.

Increasing volume of waste in Europe, reduced availability of critical primary resources and new emerging trends towards “green” products push European manufacturers towards the implementation of ‘ ...