Smart Circularity Implementation (SmartCircle)
The main goal of the SmartCircle project is to maximize the implementation of circularity and circular economy principles within the Swedish manufacturing companies by leveraging advanced digital technologies.
Start
2025-01-01
Planned completion
2028-12-13
Main financing
Co-financing
Research area
Research group
Project manager at MDU
External project member: Anna Öhrwall Rönnbäck, Luleå University of Technology
Despite increasing awareness and several pilot initiatives, scaling circularity within Sweden's manufacturing sector faces significant challenges. Most efforts are isolated to individual companies, specific sectors, or products, lacking the cross-company and cross-industry collaboration needed for large-scale, impactful circular solutions enabled by digitalization.
To address this gap, this project focuses on five real-time use cases of circularity enabled by digitalization, offering detailed insights into both implementation and commercialization. A strong consortium supports this effort, including MDU and LTU, along with six manufacturing companies, one technology provider, one circular service provider, one co-production platform, and one innovation arena. Key partners include Weda, Assa Abloy, CH Industry, EEPAB, Trifilon, Addiva, Harting, Södertälje Science Park, Milav, and MITC.
Core project activities include mapping circular ecosystems and business models, enabling technologies and infrastructure, developing circular productservice software systems, aligning with policies, and implementing smart circularity solutions. With multiple real-time use cases running in parallel, SmartCircle aims to accelerate and scale the adoption of smart circularity practices.
Project objective
The main goal of the SmartCircle project is to maximize the implementation of circularity and circular economy principles within the Swedish manufacturing companies by leveraging advanced digital technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and blockchain.
The SmartCircle project develops new knowledge in this area by fulfilling following five objectives:
- To leverage advanced digital technologies such as IoT, AI, cloud computing, blockchain, big data analytics to enhance the integration of circular economy principles in at least five Swedish manufacturing companies.
- To implement and document at least five real-time use cases of circularity enabled by digitalization, providing insights that aid in the implementation and commercialization of circular practices, ultimately aiming to reduce resource consumption and waste.
- To develop a comprehensive methodology for smart circularity development and implementation in manufacturing companies, considering various contextual factors.
- To establish a cross-company and cross-industry collaboration network involving a minimum of 10 cross-company partnerships and 3 cross-industry alliances that drives the widespread adoption of scalable circular economy solutions, breaking down silos and enabling a more holistic approach to circularity.
- To align the project outcomes with Sweden’s climate-neutral goals by demonstrating the transformation of linear processes into circular systems, thereby significantly reducing environmental impact.
The project work is organized into six work packages (WP 1-6):
- WP1: Mapping circular ecosystem and business models.
- WP2: Enabling technologies and infrastructure.
- WP3: Circular product-service-software systems.
- WP4: Policy alignment and compliance.
- WP5: Smart circularity implementation.
- Wp6: Project management and knowledge transfer.