The reuse economy for digital technologies: A rapid review

This study outlines the research undertaken to evaluate the reuse economy for digital technologies. While the direct reuse of products offer the lowest economic and environmental impact, the reuse economy for ubiquitous products such as digital technologies is still lacking in research. Furthermore, there is still lack of clarity on what digital technologies means with regard to identifying a research agenda within the context of the circular economy. Using a rapid review of evidence, we identify and empirically examine 47 papers from the literature relating to reuse economy, circular economy and digital technologies. Overall, the paper shows that there is a relative research emphasis on technological, socio-cultural, and environmental aspects of reuse. Economy and policy aspects of the reuse economy, important for advancing circular economy research and understanding value within this reuse economy, remains latent. As a resource efficient circular economy includes maximising value for economic benefits, advancing this area of research will be important especially for the informal sector of developing economies. We also observe that product and process scales of these digital technologies do not largely contribute to the current investigation on reuse economy. We link this slow uptake in research to the lack of clarity experienced in understanding what constitutes digital technologies within the context of reuse economy. Finally, we develop a research agenda across the five dimensions of sustainability, highlighting reuse economy research emphasis for the economy and policy aspect of the circular economy.