2023, Forschungsprojekt, Preißendörfer Kasom

Betreuung durch M.Sc. Yannick Juresa

In recent years, the climate crisis has been omnipresent. Associated topics like resource shortage and carbon emissions continuously lead to new economical, ecological, and social challenges. Additionally, the pandemic, and resulting new work conditions disrupt the world as we know it. To face these new challenges, the society relies on technological development such as the rise and use of the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT consists of millions of interconnected devices that communicate and exchange data. Using sensors and other enabling technologies, the IoT enables real-time monitoring and control of processes and systems. This has the potential to increase the efficiency of processes and reduce resource consumption as well as environmental impact. One example is smart agriculture, which uses IoT technology to monitor and optimize the use of resources such as water, fertilizer, and pesticides. This can help reduce the environmental impact of agriculture and improve the sustainability of food production. This helps to face existing challenges in feeding the world population. In terms of economic efficiency, the IoT can help companies increase productivity and reduce costs by collecting and analyzing data to increase process efficiency. For example, IoT-powered supply chain management can help improve transportation and logistics efficiency, reduce waste, and increase their speed. The integration of IoT in production drives and enables the fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0. It can also help companies develop new products and services by collecting customer data and using it to identify new market opportunities. Hereby, so-called Smart Product Service Systems (SPSS) play a decisive role. With the increasing development of product-service bundles, the economic change of a linear economy to a Circular Economy is fostered. Furthermore, alternative consumption concepts such as the Sharing Economy are promoted in an extensive way what leads to changes in social responsibility. Overall, promoting sustainability with the IoT can have a positive impact on all three dimensions, namely society, the economy, and the environment. It can help protect the environment by reducing resource consumption and environmental impact, improve economic efficiency by increasing productivity and reducing costs, and address social issues by providing access to essential services and reducing poverty and inequality. However, existing literature is lacking a method to clearly measure the sustainability promotion of IoT applications. Therefore, this study provides a catalogue of measures of sustainability promotion through IoT, based on the existing literature on SPSS and Smart Products. To visualize and categorize those measures, the author used the Integrative Sustainability Triangle. The quality and applicability of the developed catalogue was proven through exemplary examination on both, existing consumption concepts and application fields of IoT. The efficiency of the catalogue was proven despite the differences in granularity. The researched concepts are Circular Economy and Sharing Economy. The researched application fields are Smart Agriculture and Industry 4.0.