Digital Eco-Design and Life Cycle Assessment—Key Elements in a Circular Economy: A Case Study of a Conventional Desk

Literature Review by Scientometric Methods on the Impact of the Circular Economy on Sustainable Industrial Products

The circular economy (CE) is a contemporary concept that includes the use of renewable materials and technologies, making sustainability an important part of corporate management. The paper deals with issues related to the current state of learning and management of the application of circular economy concepts—CE. The main purpose of this work is to identify both the interest of industries in the CE field in terms of the principles of eco-design and eco-innovation of sustainable industrial products, as well as the approach and development of the concept during the pandemic period. The authors performed a scientometric analysis in the Web of Science (WOS) database for the CE field, having two search criteria: sustainability and eco-design. As a result, 66 publications from the last five years were retained. Given the higher number of publications in the last three years, CE was found to be a topical area. Out of the 66 publications, using the PRISMA diagram, the authors identified the eligible articles, excluding 15 of them as being only tangential to the CE field and not applied in the industry. Depending on the high frequency of certain keywords, the authors identified three important directions for the CE approach that corroborate and interpret the results obtained: M—management (1); P—packing (2); and L—Learning (3). Following this approach, the authors determined the focus of the manufacturing industries in terms of applying the concepts and principles of CE, thus being able to contribute to the creation of eco-innovation and eco-design practices of industrial products, especially industrial packaging. The paper will also be beneficial for Ph.D. students who show a certain interest in CE and will help develop the following research directions in this field.

Green Supply Chain Management Efforts of First-Tier Suppliers on Economic and Business Performances in the Electronics Industry

Green supply chain management (GSCM) has a necessary goal of performing a firm’s social and environmental responsibilities, and SMEs employ GSCM practices with constrained resources. SMEs need to determine which areas they need to concentrate their limited resources to result in positively noticeable economic outcomes. This study aims to identify what GSCM practices would influence economic and business profitability for first-tier suppliers in the electronics industry. Specifically, this examines whether internal environmental management (IEM), green purchasing (GP), cooperation with customers (CC), and eco-design (ECO) have a role in enhancing an organization’s economic performance (ECP) and business performance (BP). Survey data from 193 South Korean electronics firms were collected to test the proposed model. The survey responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results of the present study showed that IEM, CC, and ECO of the responding SMEs had direct positive influences on ECP. Moreover, economic performance has a statistically significant influence on BP. However, GP did not show a significant relationship with ECP. This study investigated first-tier suppliers within the electronics industry and identified what GSCM practices would be important in improving the performances of SME manufacturing companies.