Systematic Analysis of the Supply Chain Operations Reference Model for Supporting Circular Economy

Abstract

Nowadays, we produce and consume a large volume of products giving insufficient regard to what happens to the products before, during and after use or consumption. Globally roughly one-third of food produced is lost or wasted each year. As the world population and per-capita income increase, the problem gets worse. This lifestyle based on “linear” economy has become untenable, and therefore the adoption of a system of business processes that implement circular economy principles approach is proposed. However, it is not clear to what extent the current practice of documenting business processes in supply chains, the SCOR (Supply Chain Operations Reference) model, reflects and captures the circular economy practices. In this study, we reviewed the state-of-the-art literature to identify to what extent the SCOR model has been used in connection to circular economy and to what extent SCOR supports “circular” business processes.