Advancing the circular economy through information sharing: A systematic literature review

Information sharing is a key enabler for a circular economy. Information on the treated products and on the operations of other actors helps firms to keep products and materials in the loop. Current research on information sharing in the circular economy is fragmented across multiple research disciplines and lacks integration. With this study, we synthesize past research on information sharing in the circular economy and provide a basis for future research. We conduct a systematic literature review of 84 peer-reviewed articles. Through a qualitative content analysis, we provide a framework that brings together interdisciplinary research and highlights the six main topics studied. Furthermore, we showcase two main perspectives on the topic: (i) a technical perspective that mainly focuses on making the necessary information available to all actors and (ii) a supply chain perspective that studies the impact of information sharing. We argue that for increased circularity: (i) inter-organizational information sharing between business areas like manufacturing and recycling must be improved, (ii) access to information for all circular economy actors must be facilitated, and (iii) incentives for CE information sharing must be created. Finally, we suggest avenues for future interdisciplinary research to fulfill these requirements.