Barriers of implementing circularity and Industry 4.0 related solutions : From the perspective of a manufacturer of food processing equipment

Sammanfattning: As environmental and social challenges have increasingly become more pressing in recent years, the concept of Circular Economy (CE) has gained a lot of traction with scholars. However its adoption in the practical world is not far along and companies therefore struggle with understanding and implementing CE. There seem however to exist plenty of barriers for companies to implement circularity into their operations and/or products and services. Industry 4.0, the latest digital revolution, seems to have an inherent connection to CE in that the technologies connected to Industry 4.0 seem to have the potential of solving some of the mentioned barriers. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to analyse barriers and Industry 4.0 solutions for incumbent manufacturers of food processing machinery and food manufacturers, in the European food manufacturing industry, to implement circularity into their products and operations. An additional purpose is to illuminate the industry practitioners’ understanding of CE. This study is a case study conducted in collaboration with a manufacturer of food processing equipment and is of a qualitative nature. To enhance the reliability of the study, a customer company of the case study company and a sustainability consultant are interviewed as well. The study includes semi-structured interviews and a literature review. The study shows that there are numerous barriers to implement CE in the food manufacturing industry and Industry 4.0 technologies can be used to solve some of them, but not all. For example, IoT, AI and XR were shown to contribute to more circularity within the industry. In addition, knowledge and understanding of CE in the industry is identified as a major part of implementing CE which currently varies a lot between different practitioners in the industry.