Skip to main content

Social Sustainability and Continuous Learning in the Circular Economy Framework

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Responsible Consumption and Production

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

Definitions

The social sustainability is never a single observable entity. It is highly entwined with economic and technical sustainability of the companies. According to the United Nations (2018), the social sustainability is about identifying and managing business impacts, both positive and negative, on people. Continuous learning is one of the key aspects when considering the social sustainability in the framework of manufacturing and its future business models.

Introduction

Manufacturing, defined as the transformation of materials and information into goods for the satisfaction of human needs, is one of the primary wealth-generating activities of any nation (Chryssolouris et al. 2013). According to OECD’s definition, “sustainable manufacturing,” also sustainable production, is a formal name for an exciting new way of doing business and creating value. In general, manufacturing industry, regardless of the size or activities, aims to enhance their competitive edge, reduce risks,...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abdul-Rashid SH, Sakundarini N, Ariffin R, Ramayah R (2017) Drivers for the adoption of sustainable manufacturing practices: a Malaysia perspective. Int J Precis Eng Manuf 18(11):1619–1631

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berlin C, Barletta I, Fantini P, Georgoulia K, Hanisch C, Lanz M, Pintoze M, Schönborn G, Stahre J, Taisch M, Tuokko R (2016) Prerequisites and conditions for socially sustainable manufacturing in Europe’s future factories – results overview from the SO SMART Project. In: Ahram T, Karwowski W (eds) 7th international conference on applied human factors and ergonomics AHFE 2016, Walt Disney. Volume: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on applied human factors and ergonomics AHFE 2016, Walt Disney, 27–31 July 2016, Springer series on advances in intelligent systems and computing

    Google Scholar 

  • Block C, Kreimeier D, Kuhlenkötter B (2018) Holistic approach for teaching IT skills in a production environment. In: Mourtzis D, Chryssolouris G (eds) Advanced engineering education & training for manufacturing innovation. 8th CIRP sponsored conference on learning factories (CLF 2018). Procedia Manufacturing, vol 23, pp 57–62

    Google Scholar 

  • Cedefop (2015) Europe’s uneven return to job growth, Forecasts up to 2025 point to major differences in skills supply and demand across Member States, p. 4. http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/files/9098_en.pdf

  • Chryssolouris G, Mavrikios D, Mourtzis D (2013) Manufacturing systems: skills & competencies for the future. In: Forty sixth CIRP conference on manufacturing systems 2013. Procedia CIRP, vol 7, pp 17–24

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Pisani JA (2006) Sustainable development – historical roots of the concept. Environ Sci 3(2):83

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eberhard A, Metternicha J, Tischa M, Chryssolouris G, Sihnc W, ElMaraghyd H et al (2015) Learning factories for research, education, and training. In: The 5th conference on learning factories 2015. Procedia CIRP, vol 32, pp 1–6

    Google Scholar 

  • Edum-Fotwe FT, Price ADF (2009) A social ontology for appraising sustainability of construction projects and developments. Int J Proj Manag 27(4):313–322

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elbestawi M, Centea D, Singh I, Wanyama T (2018) SEPT learning factory for industry 4.0 education and applied research. In: Mourtzis D, Chryssolouris G (eds) Advanced engineering education & training for manufacturing innovation. 8th CIRP sponsored conference on learning factories (CLF 2018). Procedia Manufacturing, vol 23, pp 249–254

    Google Scholar 

  • Europe 2020 indicators – employment. 2018. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Europe_2020_indicators_-_employment. Viewed 17 Jan 2019

  • European Commission (2010) Europe 2020: a strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, p. 34. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A52010DC2020

  • European Commission (2016) A European Strategy for low-emission mobility. https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport_en. Viewed 23 May 2018

  • Faggella D (2018) Global competition rises for AI industrial robotics. Techemergence. https://www.techemergence.com/global-competition-rises-ai-industrial-robotics/. Viewed 17 Jan 2019

  • Fantini P, Taisch M, Palasciano C (2013) Social sustainability: perspectives on the role of manufacturing. In: Prabhu V, Taisch M, Kiritsis D (eds) Advances in production management systems. Sustainable production and service supply chains. APMS 2013. IFIP advances in information and communication technology, vol 414. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg

    Google Scholar 

  • Frey CB, Osborne MA (2017) The future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to computerization. Technol Forecast Soc Chang 114:254–280

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghisellini P, Cialani C, Ulgiati S (2016) A review on circular economy: the expected transition to a balanced interplay of environmental and economic systems. J Clean Prod 114:11–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray C, Charter M (2006) Remanufacturing and product design – designing for the 7th generation. The Centre for Sustainable Design, University College for the Creative Arts, Farnham, p 77

    Google Scholar 

  • Hämäläinen R, Lanz M, Koskinen KT (2018) Collaborative systems and environments for future working life: towards the integration of workers, systems and manufacturing environments. In: The impact of digitalization in the workplace. Springer, Cham, pp 25–38

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hamia N, Muhamad MR, Ebrahim Z (2015) The impact of sustainable manufacturing practices and innovation performance on economic sustainability. In: 12th global conference on sustainable manufacturing. Procedia CIRP, vol 26, pp 190–195

    Google Scholar 

  • International Labour Office (2010) A skilled workforce for strong, sustainable and balanced growth: a G20 training strategy. ISBN 978-92-2-124278-9

    Google Scholar 

  • Jawahir IS, Bradley R (2016) Technological Elements of Circular Economy and the Principles of 6R-Based Closedloop Material Flow in Sustainable Manufacturing. Procedia CIRP 40:103–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2016.01.067

  • Jayal AD, Badurdeen F, Jawahir IS (2010) Sustainable manufacturing: modeling and optimization challenges at the product, process and system levels. CIRP J Manuf Sci Technol 2(3):144–152

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jovane F, Koren Y, Boera CR (2003) Present and future of flexible automation: towards new paradigms. CIRP Ann 52(2):543–560

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirchherr J, Reike D, Hekkert M (2017) Conceptualizing the circular economy: an analysis of 114 definitions. Resour Conserv Recycl 127(April):221–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.09.005

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kolios A, Read G (2013) A political, economic, social, technology, legal and environmental (PESTLE) approach for risk identification of the tidal industry in the United Kingdom. Energies 6:5023–5045. https://doi.org/10.3390/en6105023

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Korhonen J, Honkasalo A, Seppälä J (2018) Circular economy: the concept and its limitations. Ecol Econ 143:37–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.06.041

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lanz M, Järvenpää E, Nylund H, Tuokko R, Torvinen S, Georgoulias K (2014) Sustainability and performance indicators landscape. In: Proceedings of the 24th international conference on flexible automation & intelligent manufacturing, FAIM, p 8

    Google Scholar 

  • Lanz M, Lobov A, Katajisto K, Mäkelä P (2018) A concept and local implementation for industry-academy collaboration and life-long learning. In: 8th conference on learning factories 2018 – advanced engineering education & training for manufacturing innovation. Procedia Manufacturing, vol 23, pp 189–194

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieder M, Rashid A (2016) Towards circular economy implementation: a comprehensive review in context of manufacturing industry. J Clean Prod 115:36–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Makumbe S, Hattingh Tm, Plint N, Esterhuizem D (2018) Effectiveness of using learning factories to impart Lean principles in mining employees. In: 8th conference on learning factories 2018 – advanced engineering education & training for manufacturing innovation. Procedia Manufacturing, pp 2369–2374

    Google Scholar 

  • Neely A (2011) The servitization of manufacturing: a longitudinal study of global trends. http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/fdconf/presentations/DAY%201%20AM/PANEL%201/Neely%20110228-WhartonForum.pdf

  • Nokelainen P, Nevalainen T, Niemi K (2018) Mind or machine? Opportunities and limits of automation. In: The impact of digitalization in the workplace, vol 21. Springer, Cham, pp 13–24

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • OECD. About sustainable manufacturing and the toolkit. https://www.oecd.org/innovation/green/toolkit/aboutsustainablemanufacturingandthetoolkit.htm. Viewed 23 May 2018

  • Paju M, Heilala J, Hentula M, Heikkilä A, Johansson B, Leong S, Lyons K (2010) Framework and indicators for a sustainable manufacturing mapping methodology. In: Proceedings of the 2010 winter simulation conference

    Google Scholar 

  • Prieto-Sandoval V, Jaca C, Ormazabal M (2017) Towards a consensus on the circular economy. J Clean Prod. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.224

  • Rentzos L, Mavrikios D, Chryssolouris G (2015) A two-way knowledge interaction in manufacturing education: the teaching factory. In: The 5th conference on learning factories 2015. Procedia CIRP, vol 32, pp 31–35

    Google Scholar 

  • Roeder I, Wang WM, Muschard BR (2017) Inducing behavioural change in society through communication and education in sustainable manufacturing. In: Stark et al (eds) Sustainable manufacturing, sustainable production, life cycle engineering and management book series (SPLCEM) in Springer. pp 255–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48514-0_16

  • Romero D, Molina A (2012) IFIP AICT 380 – Green virtual enterprise breeding environments: a sustainable industrial development model for a circular economy. Ifip Aict 380(c):427–436. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-642-32775-9_43.pdf

    Google Scholar 

  • Secundo G, Passiante G, Romano A, Moliterni P (2013) Developing the next generation of engineers for intelligent and sustainable manufacturing: a case study. Int J Eng Educ 29(1):248–262

    Google Scholar 

  • SO SMART D1.2 (2014) Report on key indicators of social sustainability, p 37

    Google Scholar 

  • SO SMART D4.2 (2014) Research and education roadmap, p 246

    Google Scholar 

  • Toivonen V, Lanz M, Nylund H, Nieminen H (2018) The FMS Training Center – a versatile learning environment for engineering education. In: 8th CIRP conference on learning factories – advanced engineering education & training for manufacturing innovation, p 6

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomiyama T (1999) The post mass production paradigm. In: Proceedings – 1st international symposium on environmentally conscious design and inverse manufacturing, EcoDesign 1999, pp 162–167. https://doi.org/10.1109/ECODIM.1999.747602

  • United Nations Global. Social sustainability. https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/our-work/social. Viewed 24 May 2018

  • Vallance S, Perkins HC, Dixon JE (2011) What is social sustainability? A clarification of concepts. Geoforum 42(3):342–348

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vinnova (2011) Innovation & gender (eds: Danilda I, Thorslund JG), p 98. http://jamda.ub.gu.se/bitstream/1/628/1/Innovation_vinnova_eng.pdf. Viewed 20 Apr 2018

  • Wagner U, AlGeddawy T, ElMaraghy H, Müller E (2012) The state-of-the-art and prospects of learning factories. Procedia CIRP 3:109–114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wagner P, Prinz C, Wannöffel M, Kreimeier D (2015) Learning factory for management, organization and workers’ participation. In: The 5th conference on learning factories 2015. Procedia CIRP, vol 32, pp 115–119

    Google Scholar 

  • World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Minna Lanz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Section Editor information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Lanz, M., Järvenpää, E. (2019). Social Sustainability and Continuous Learning in the Circular Economy Framework. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Responsible Consumption and Production. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71062-4_35-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71062-4_35-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71062-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71062-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Earth and Environm. ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics