In the transition to a circular focus on electric and electronic products, manufacturers play a key role as the originators of both the products and the information about the products. While the waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) directive’s contemporary focus is on handling the product as waste after its end of life, the circular economy focuses on retaining the product’s value with a restorative system. The polluter-pays principle requires producers of pollution to bear the costs of handling the pollution, leading to the extended producer responsibility (EPR) principle. This requires manufacturers to change their focus from their current passive role of out-sourcing end-of-life treatment to taking explicit responsibility for product management over an extended period of time. This paper investigates how a manufacturer can assume its responsibility to achieve circularity for its products. Based on our findings, three fundamental circularity principles, the circular electric and electronic equipment (CEEE) principles, for manufactures of electronic and electrical equipment are defined: (1) Serialize product identifiers, (2) data controlled by their authoritative source at the edge, and (3) independent actors’ access to edge data via a distributer ledger are the foundation of the Edge and Distributed Ledger (Edge&DL) model. We demonstrate the model through a case study of how to achieve circularity for lighting equipment. The CEEE principles and the demonstrated model contribute to building new circularity systems for electronic and electric products that let manufacturers undertake their extended product responsibility.

Circularity for Electric and Electronic Equipment (EEE), the Edge and Distributed Ledger (Edge&DL) Model

Closing the loop: Establishing reverse logistics for a circular economy, a systematic review.

ABSTRACT Closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) activities ensure flawless Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) management by the usage of IoT and Blockchain technology (BCT) is proven as an effective and sustainable solution among developed countries. However, implementation challenges including data integrity, accessibility, and reluctance to change restrict the potential of these digital technologies in developing countries. Thus, to extend the existing literature, the study has relevance. Based on a systematic literature review, Best Worst Method (BWM) is used for determining the most critical BCT implementation barriers affecting WEEE. This study identifies the IoT-enabled BCT implementation issues in closed-loop WEEE management. This study examines the appropriate issues in the context of developing a legislative support system, ineffective database management, low understanding of cognitive technologies, and information security and privacy are the key concerns for BCT implementation in closed-loop supply chains. The model is an effort in the waste management domain for the transition of developing economies towards circularity.

Implementation challenges of blockchain technology in closed-loop supply chain: A Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) management perspective in developing countries

Green manufacturing is becoming an important emerging field in the new round of global industrial revolution and scientific and technological competition. Scientific evaluation of China’s regional green manufacturing level has far-reaching significance for promoting the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry and enhancing international competitiveness. This paper defines the connotation of green manufacturing in China in the new era, proposes four dimensions of green production, green emission, green technology, and green benefit as the framework of the evaluation system, and constructs the evaluation index system. By taking 30 provincial administrative regions as research samples, based on the data from 2017 to 2020, the combination weighting method and TOPSIS are used for evaluation from the perspective of “static” and “dynamic” to identify the current situation and development of green manufacturing level in each region. It was found that the important factors affecting the green manufacturing level in each region are green products, green invention patents, sulfur dioxide, green factories, and coal consumption. The “static” evaluation results show that the green manufacturing level varies significantly among regions. The eastern area is generally better than the central and western areas, and only six regions are at high-level and medium to high-level. In addition, the four dimensions in most regions are imbalanced, with an obvious Matthew effect. The “dynamic” evaluation results show that the green manufacturing level in 30 regions appears to have six different types of dynamic trends. There is a small change in the ranking of most regions, indicating that the dynamic development of green manufacturing level has clear regional dependence, which is difficult to change in the short term. The research results show that the index system and model can effectively evaluate the regional green manufacturing level. Finally, combined with the important influencing factors, some suggestions are proposed to enhance the regional green manufacturing level.

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Evaluation of Green Manufacturing Level in China’s Provincial Administrative Regions Based on Combination Weighting Method and TOPSIS

Generation estimation and material flow analysis of retired mobile phones in China

We are facing the challenge of rapid growth in waste from electrical products (e-waste). In Europe, handling e-waste is regulated by the European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, which is based on the extended producer responsibility (EPR) model as a regulatory tool forcing manufacturers and importers to take responsibility for their products throughout their lifecycles. However, the directive allows for great variations in implementations in each country, causing e-manufacturers and e-waste handling operators to face challenges in their transition to more sustainable operations. To identify the challenges involved, this study investigates the effect of the WEEE directive from a manufacturer’s perspective. A case study of an e-manufacturer operating subsidiaries in several European countries and the associated producer responsibility organizations (PROs) is presented. The case study includes interviews from 17 stakeholders in 12 organizations in eight European countries. Key findings are as follows. First, the WEEE data reported are not harmonized. Second, the calculations of the environmental fee differ across countries. Third, following up on different national WEEE obligations sometimes leads to over-reporting to avoid negative effects on environmental corporate social responsibility, brand reputation, and profitability. Fourth, outsourcing end-of-life (EoL) treatment responsibility to PROs is seen as positive by the manufacturer but results in a decoupling of the EPR and the operational EoL treatment, which may reduce efforts to transfer to a higher circularity level of its EEE products. Fifth, WEEE is considered a way for e-manufacturers to handle waste not to adopt a circular focus. This paper contributes to both practitioners and researchers within reverse logistics and sustainability by adding knowledge from real-life context of how EPR is implemented in WEEE.

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Terje Andersen

Papers

A comparative study of national variations of the European WEEE directive: manufacturer’s view