The idea of a circular economy (CE) has gained ground over the past ten years as a means of addressing sustainable development and getting around the limitations of the current and linear dominant production and consumption patterns. The primary goal of a CE is to encourage the adoption of closing-the-loop production methods to improve resource use efficiency, modify chemical processes, and increase product and material lifespan. According to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which focuses on 17 Sustainable Development Goals, 14 of which call for the appropriate application of green chemistry (GC) concepts and patterns, the role that chemistry may play in the shift toward more sustainable models is critical. By serving as the foundation for novel products made from renewable feedstocks and designed to be reused, recycled, or recovered with the associated minimum energy requirements, green and sustainable chemistry could be the key to unlocking the economic potential of the CE toward new product design and ultimately solving waste management problems. The aim of this perspective paper, while using a variety of literature sources, is to essentially capture the main issues associated with the CE and GC paradigms and how these two approaches can merge toward sustainable business models and the production of new materials. This integration focuses on reducing waste, conserving resources, and minimizing negative environmental impacts, while also considering economic viability. However, the obstacles to achieving implementation of the CE and GC principles are investment, environmental education, and legislation. To advance toward the circular economy and green chemistry, international agreements should be reconsidered to provide an appropriate framework, including the creation of incentives for businesses and individuals to adopt circular practices, the establishment of education programs to promote the benefits of circular practices, and the development of regulations to support the transition to sustainable production and consumption patterns.

This paper provided a novel definition of customer knowledge management (CKM) as the logical intersection of customer relationship management (CRM) and knowledge management (KM). The main aim was to investigate the digital technologies supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in creative industries in their customer knowledge management strategies. To achieve this aim, a survey involving 73 handicraft and/or retail SMEs operating in luxury jewelry industry was conducted. The survey results pointed out that in a few years the scenario has changed and that surveyed SMEs make more intensive use of traditional technologies supporting customer knowledge management processes rather than more innovative digital technologies, which are also cheap and easy to use. This finding showed the difficulties of SMEs operating in creative industries to be responsive to the rapid technological changes that are affecting CKM, as well as the lack of support from information technology vendors in the decision-making process for choosing adequate digital systems.

In the last several decades, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) reverse supply chain management has increasingly gained more attention due to the development of an environmental awareness, the rapid raise of e-wasted products and the EU regulations. In particular, although the new EU WEEE collection target has not been reached by many EU countries, several studies show that an optimized WEEE wastes management processes could represent a relevant way to achieve economic, environmental and social benefits expected by the adoption of circular economy approaches. According to this, the paper aims to evaluate the extent to which the current Italian organization of the WEEE management system and the related legislation are able to support the achievement of the targets defined by EU with a specific focus on the collection centers (CCs) which play a key role being the initial point of the WEEE reverse logistic cycle. An illustrative analysis based on the transition probability matrix regarding both the e-waste collecting performance and the distribution of collecting centers in the Italian provinces is illustrated. Furthermore, we have analyzed the presence of a correlation between the WEEE collection rate and the presence of the CCs in different provinces in order to better comprehend the role that can play both the investments in CC system and other soft measures in achieving the WEEE collection targets. Results show that the current Italian organization of the WEEE management system and the related legislations are not so effective in supporting the achievement of EU WEEE collection targets at the national level, although some geographical areas and provinces outperform the EU targets.

The utilization of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and its corresponding methodologies gained considerable attention within the realm of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability assessment. Nevertheless, a lack of extensive investigation on their integration along with quantitative procedures, for example, statistical techniques and artificial intelligence (AI), has emerged. The purpose of this literature review is to investigate the extent to which these methodologies have been connected so far in order to achieve objectives concerning the assessment of sustainability. The scope of the study was restricted to articles published in peer‐reviewed journals throughout the period from 1960 to 2022. The investigation was conducted by using a broad set of keywords, encompassing both life cycle methods, including Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Life Cycle Costing and Emergy Accounting, and quantitative methods, such as mathematical methods, economic methods and building information modeling methods. A total of 144 articles addressing the combined use of life cycle methods and quantitative methodologies for the evaluation of sustainability were identified in the literature review. The greater part of these studies relied on the combined use of LCA with mathematical models, statistical methods and AI methods. As a result, the studies proven that the joint application of such methods can improve consistency of sustainability assessment and enhance CSR. Additionally, many articles suggested novel approaches, including a combined use of LCA and building information modeling as well as simulation methods. The combined use of life cycle methods alongside quantitative methods offers promise in enhancing sustainability assessment by offering more precise and consistent outcomes. However, it becomes imperative to carefully evaluate the hypotheses, accuracy of data, and uncertainty associated with each method within the integration process. Additional research needs to be conducted in order to establish standardized protocols for combining these methodologies as well as to identify the most suitable procedures for their integration with respect to specific objectives concerning sustainability assessment.