Abstract: Product redesign, reuse and transformation pathways are important in the circular economy chain. Therefore, it is important to identify the connection between them. The research presents a systemic review of specialized literature using the most current research undertaken. The research results show that cross-domain interactions are missing or partially addressed. The link between transformation pathways and the other four domains has received little attention. This paper provides a comprehensive picture of the importance of circularity and industrial symbiosis. 

Keywords: Sustainability, Circular Economy, Resource management, Product Redesign, Reverse Logistics, EcoDesign

I. INTRODUCTION

The linear economic model is defined by the consecutive processes of extraction, production, and disposal. This model faces persistent examination as resource limitations, environmental deterioration, and climate necessities call for alternative methods of production and consumption (Rashid & Malik, 2023). In this context, the circular economy (CE) has become a compelling concept. It perceives waste as a resource and promotes the continual extraction of value through recycling, remanufacture, reuse, and regeneration (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2019).

Within the topic of circular economy, two concepts have garnered significant academic focus: circular supply chains (CSCs) and industrial symbiosis (IS). The first one focuses on how to close internally and externally the material loops among enterprises. In this

context, concepts such as reverse logistics and closedloop flows emerge (Garcia-Buendia et al., 2024). In contrast, industrial symbiosis examines circularity from an ecosystem perspective. It facilitates the collaboration of firms in exchanging waste streams, energy, and by-products to promote industrial synergy (Palagonia et al., 2025).

Other key aspects closely linked to circular supply chains and industrial symbiosis include product design, available technologies, and organizational and institutional conditions, all of which influence whether the transition from linear to circular systems can be successfully achieved.

Although there is a substantial number of publications on these topics individually, comprehensive evaluations that concurrently assess the literature on circular supply chains, industrial symbiosis, product redesign, product reuse, and transformation routes are remarkably limited. Each of these subjects possesses considerable internal depth, yet the boundaries between them remain intact. Consequently, significant cross-domain questions, such as the influence of product design decisions on supply chain structures in relation to industrial symbiosis involvement, have not been investigated.

The transition from linear to circular economic models has had great interest in the development of circular supply chains within the process of industrial symbiosis. This aims to ensure collaboration between organizations and increase efficiency in resource use and waste reduction. Therefore, this study seeks to

1 Faculty of Management in Production and Transportation, Management Department, 14 Remus street, 300900 Timisoara, Romania, larisa.ivascu@upt.ro

2 Faculty of Management in Production and Transportation, Management Department, 14 Remus street, 300900 Timisoara, Romania, timea.cisma@student.upt.ro

3 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Management Department, 14 Remus street, 300900 Timisoara, Romania, simon.pescari@upt.ro

4 Faculty of Management in Production and Transportation, Management Department, 14 Remus street, 300900 Timisoara, Romania, neta-ionelia.saptebani@student.upt.ro

5 Faculty of Management in Production and Transportation, Management Department, 14 Remus street, 300900 Timisoara, Romania, dragos-mihail.boruga@student.upt.ro

• To synthesize the current state of knowledge across the five thematic domains, • To map the existing relationships between and across the five domains, • To map the open research gaps that existing literature has not yet addressed. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes the methodology adopted for the literature search and selection process, detailing the databases consulted, search terms applied, and inclusion criteria used. Section 3 presents the literature review, which synthesizes the current state of knowledge across the five disciplines. Section 4 provides an analytical examination of the examined studies. Section 5 finishes the study by summarizing the principal findings.

II. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

This paper presents a literature review on the main concepts. It synthesizes the existing knowledge and identifies research gaps. The process included three stages: literature identification, screening, and thematic synthesis.

As mentioned, the first phase was to identify relevant literature. Therefore, we have used Scopus and Web of Science databases. These two were selected because they contain reputable peer-reviewed publications. We also used Google Scholar to identify other studies and book chapters. We have applied following Boolean search across titles, abstracts, and keywords: „circular supply chain” OR „circular supply chain management” AND „industrial symbiosis” OR „product redesign” OR „product reuse” OR „transformation pathway” OR „reverse logistics”. Also, we have restricted the search to peer-reviewed articles and book chapters published between 2020 and 2026 in English. This period was chosen to capture the most recent publications in this field.

Secondly, we have screened the relevance of the papers. Titles and abstracts were assessed against the thematic scope of the paper. Only studies that directly engaged with at least one of the five target domains were retained. Subsequently, full texts were analyzed to verify relevance and evaluate the quality.

Finally, each paper was categorized into one or more domains according to its principal contribution and the manner of its engagement with that domain. Afterwards, we looked at linkages between different domains and searched connections between pairs of domains. Those were either explicit, tacitly acknowledged, or not found in the literature that was evaluated.

The examined literature encompasses five interconnected domains, circular supply chains, industrial symbiosis, product redesign, product reuse, and transformation pathways, each of which cultivates significant knowledge while staying isolated from the others.

A. Circular Supply Chains Circular supply chains differ from traditional supply chains because they combine restorative and regenerative cycles at the same time. This is achieved by closed-loop flows, where materials are reintegrated into the same system and waste is directed to alternative industries or applications. As a result, waste production and the need for new materials are cut down. Resource efficiency is also an objective of CSCs because they put value creation and waste elimination at the center of supply chain design. This means that at every stage of the life cycle, operational priorities are shifted to protecting and recovering the value of materials, components, and products. This necessitates that all participants in the chain commit to sustainability (Montag, 2023).

The circular supply chain is a system wherein product design, information and communication technologies, and value proposition collectively govern all supply chain activities. At the end of their cycle, materials and products are redirected into the system via a series of recovery loops, such as repair, reuse, refurbish/remanufacture, recycle, or cascade. The coordination of reverse flows needs recovery and return management systems, as well as good distribution and collection that unifies forward and reverse logistics, alongside network management decisions on facility placement, transportation, and inventory. Additionally, stakeholder involvement includes everything, such as roles, incentives, and ownership structures that determine how actors interact with the system (Amir et al., 2023).

The adoption of circular supply chain management (CSCM) improves resource and supply chain efficiency, while also fostering economic growth and value creation. In addition to operational advantages, CSCM enhances end-of-life strategies by facilitating more efficient recovery, reuse, and reintegration of materials and components. Hence, the overall competitiveness of the enterprises and networks is improved. Collectively, CSCM is not only an environmental management instrument but also a holistic strategy for sustainability that provides value across economic, environmental, and social spheres (Lahane et al., 2020).

The creation of a circular supply chain mostly relies on the commitment of senior management and shareholders to incorporate circular economy ideas into business strategy and to effectively direct the network of upstream and downstream partners in accordance with that strategic vision. Meaning, companies need to

collaborate with suppliers and partners to advance green technology and eco-innovations. These are the basis for industrial symbiosis connections. Such relationships transform into structured collaborations whereby the waste or by-products of one company serve as inputs for another. This establishes industrial symbiosis networks that reduce waste disposal costs, diminish the demand for new raw materials, and facilitate mutually advantageous transactions (Maranesi & De Giovanni, 2020).

B. Industrial symbiosis Industrial symbiosis is far more than a meso-level strategy within the circular economy. It is a systemic mechanism that works on micro, meso-, and macro levels and involves a wide range of actors, such as consumers, businesses, supply chains, ecosystems, and governments. IS requires collaboration of all stakeholders, rather than functioning in isolation at a single level. So, this multilevel and multi-actor approach uses fewer resources, cuts down waste, and makes the economy more sustainable. This makes industrial symbiosis a key strategy for moving toward a fully circular economy

As mentioned before, industrial symbiosis is a collaborative model in which companies deliberately share materials, energy, water, and byproducts, transforming waste streams from one firm into valuable inputs for another. These create environmental benefits such as reduced raw-material consumption, lower emissions, and better resource efficiency. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is the main method for evaluating environmental benefits. It assesses the comprehensive cradle-to-grave impacts of items and activities before and following the symbiotic connection. Hence, LCA may demonstrate that the industrial symbiosis model is superior to a traditional production method (Neves et al., 2020). Moreover, it should also be noted that the process of industrial symbiosis comes with challenges as well as benefits. Most often there are organizational, technological, and institutional barriers (Palagonia et al., 2025).

The enablers and constraints of industrial symbiosis do not function uniformly across sectors, since their significance fluctuates based on the industry, the nature of the material or energy stream, and the exchange structure. Policy support, engaged partners, and geographical proximity are the main drivers. On the contrary, the main barriers are technological constraints, lack of trust between firms, the long distances, and economic constraints. To address these challenges, collaborative networks, unified waste policies, inter-firm protocols, financial instruments, and coordination with the government are needed (Henriques et al., 2021).

As mentioned above, polices promote industrial symbiosis. The most effective strategies integrate economic incentives and regulatory tools. Landfill taxes, bans on the disposal of organics, and pay-as-youthrow programs are examples of instruments that promote better waste hierarchy practices. Indirect

policy mechanisms, such as land-use planning, waste legislation reforms, and renewable energy feed-in tariffs, while not specifically designed for this purpose, can create significant symbiotic synergies. Collaborative platforms for firms to trade by-products, flexible and long-term funding mechanisms, and centralized cooperative authorities with the expertise to assist in legal, technical, and administrative processes are also important (Lybaek et al., 2021).

C. Redesign Choices made during the design phase significantly influence a product’s environmental impact. Most of the product’s effects are determined during the design phase. To achieve substantial advancements in sustainability, circularity principles must be integrated into goods from this stage. Radical redesign offers the greatest environmental advantage. On the other hand, incremental methods such as minimizing material usage, increasing reuse, and improving recovery offer only marginal improvements. The best redesign method encounters challenges in material recovery, which indicates the necessity of employing multiple strategies to properly address end-of-life material loops and achieve sustainability (Tan et al., 2024).

Circular product design refers to disassemblability, re-assimilability, durability, and modularity. Also, these are the dominant drivers of circular economy performance at the product level. If one of these attributes is improved, all recovery strategies across the R framework (upgrade, repair and maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and repurposing) are strengthened. Well-designed products do not serve a single recovery pathway but expand the range of options available to supply chain actors at every stage of the product’s life. This reinforces the idea of seeing circular design as a strategic lever rather than a technical requirement (Mesa & González-Quiroga, 2023).

In addition, product redesign has become a strategic requirement for manufacturers because of the increased consumer expectations, product complexity, and timeto-market demands. All these compel firms to continuously improve existing products to remain competitive. Design for Manufacturing and Assembly supports early-stage cost reduction by simplifying component structures and improving how products are manufactured and assembled. In addition to this, Design for reliability complements it by addressing lifecycle performance and failure reduction, which helps firms uncover potential issues early and lower the overall cost of a product across its full operational life (Juniani et al., 2021).

On the contrary, some scholars say that Design for disassembly generates meaningful economic benefits because it improves sales growth and profitability, but it does not demonstrate a significant positive effect on environmental performance such as energy consumption, carbon emissions, or raw material use (Triguero et al., 2023).

D. Reuse Within the circular supply chain framework, product reuse occupies a central position in the waste hierarchy as one of the cores „R-imperatives”. Alongside refuse, reduce, and repair, they collectively define the short-loop actions through which products and components are kept active for as long as possible. Reuse is a short-loop method that intentionally slows down the flow of materials through the system. This keeps more of a product’s value and extends its useful life before any restorative or regenerative actions are needed (Montag, 2023).

Reuse represents a significant yet underutilized circular manufacturing strategy, capable of extending product lifespans, minimizing waste production, and decreasing overall resource consumption. This would create economic, environmental, and social advantages. However, the successful implementation relies on product design that facilitates disassembly and multiple life cycles and operational processes with automated disassembly, as well as customer and market acceptability.

The latest might be achieved through education, certification, and trust. Undoubtedly, adoption is still limited because of the high initial costs, the lack of standards, and unclear core-acquisition timing. To solve these problems, there must be collaboration between industries, traceability, agreed quality standards, and complex incentives (Psarommatis et al., 2025).

E. Transformation pathways There are many kinds of transformation pathways. When it comes to climate and energy pathways, they refer to the structured, long-term routes through which energy systems and societies shift away from fossil fuel toward sustainable, low-carbon alternatives. This requires not only technological transitions but also institutional, behavioral, and economic changes.

A supply-side pathway or a demand-driven pathway can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The first is based on nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage, and biomass. The second pathway is based on solar power, heat pumps, and electric vehicles (Korkmaz et al., 2020).

Digital transformation requires two ways of approach: the implementation of flexible

organizational structures that contribute to a rapid transition or the approach of digital business ecosystems. This process should be continuous and remove rigid structures from companies (Hanelt et al., 2021). Moreover, implementation must be contextspecific and customized to the distinct characteristics and requirements of each unit (D’Amato, 2021).

Furthermore, the transition to a circular economy is not a linear sequence but a configuration that aligns with specific operational conditions, markets, and organizational competencies. It represents a type of comprehensive innovation aimed at fundamental company transformation. It necessitates companies to reevaluate their operations, value propositions, and connections with partners and customers in a cohesive and mutually reinforcing manner (Zils et al., 2025).

IV. RESEARCH GAP AND FUTURE RESEARCH

AGENDA

The systematic analysis of the five topics indicates that, while each area has, independently, a significant body of literature, the cross-domain integration is still absent.

The most significant relationships identified in the literature are between circular supply chains and industrial symbiosis, as well as between product redesign and reuse. The first pair presents a direct connection between supply chain strategy and the development of symbiotic networks, with reverse flow coordination as the operational mechanism for interfirm waste exchange.

The second pair demonstrates that circular design qualities, including modularity, disassemblability, and durability, facilitate reuse and recovery procedures. However, the relationship between circular supply chains and industrial symbiosis mostly emphasizes network building and material flow logistics, while the influence of product qualities on potential exchanges remains generally overlooked.

While the relationship between redesign and reuse is well known at the product level, it remains unconnected from the network and system-level conditions. Thus, even the well-covered relationships fall short of a completely integrated description.

Table 1. Well covered pairs

Table 2. Partial covered pairs

Table 3. Conceptual model that highlights relationships between redesign, reuse, reverse logic and supply chain

The literature addresses partially three domain pairs. Circular supply chain frameworks recognize product redesign and reuse as pertinent tactics. However, the design decisions facilitating recovery and the operational conditions for reuse are not linked to the actual configuration of supply chains. The literature on industrial symbiosis also talks about systemic transition through governance and policy mechanisms, but these usually only talk about the conditions that lead to the creation of symbiotic systems, not how they change and grow over time.

The reviewed literature provides significant insights into many domain intersections. Nonetheless, five domains remain insufficiently explored and represent essential opportunities for future investigation. The relationship between industrial symbiosis and product redesign has been insufficiently examined, particularly regarding how design-fordisassembly decisions influence companies’ capacity to exchange waste among themselves. Similarly, industrial symbiosis has rarely been examined as a structural enabler of reuse operations, despite the ability of symbiotic networks to alleviate existing barriers to reuse implementation. Moreover, the connections between transformation pathways and most of the domains are missing. Future research

should concentrate on these intersections, as addressing these gaps is essential for developing a good understanding for product-level decisions, inter-firm network configurations, and systemic transitions.

Following the analysis of the specialized literature, the conceptual model in Table 3 can be developed.

Based on this model, a linear circular supply chain performance model can be developed. For this definition we use (R = product redesign, U = product reuse, L = reverse logistics efficiency, S = level of industrial symbiosis, C = circular chain performance, E = environmental impact). C has a higher value if the product is circular. The more the product is reused, the higher the value of U. If the logistics chain is efficient, then the value of L is higher. Finally, the level of symbiosis is higher if there is a lot of collaboration between companies. If C is higher than E has a lower value.

Therefore, the proposed linear model is:

C=αR+βU+γL+δS (1) For a product A designed for circularity, the following values were obtained using a Likert scale from 1 to 10 for the variables and linear regression for the coefficients.

C=0.3*8+0.25*7+0.2*6+0.25*9 =

2.4+1.75+1.2+2.25=7.6

The interpretation of the result obtained is that the performance of the logistics chain is 7.6, close to the maximum value of 10. Therefore, an efficient circular economy system and industrial symbiosis are indicated.

V. CONCLUSION

This study examines five interconnected domains: circular supply chains, industrial symbiosis, product redesign, reuse, and transformation pathways, as well as the links between them. The review suggests that the information of each domain is substantial, but linkage between them is limited. The most recognized connection is between circular supply chains and industrial symbiosis. The second most explored connection is between product redesign and reuse, with circular design elements directly supporting multiple recovery options. Other intersections were found in the literature between circular supply chains and redesign and reuse, as well as between industrial symbiosis and transformation routes. However, these links are less studied.

Overall, there is a consensus on the need for transition towards circular frameworks. However, the practical implementation of this and its consequences for product design, product reuse, and inter-firm network structures are still uncertain. Our paper highlights the need for research that considers circular transition not as a background but as a field of study.

Future research may develop frameworks that combine circular supply chains, industrial symbiosis, and product-level initiatives into one unit. In this system, design choices, network configurations, and transition dynamics would be interdependent variables, not isolated factors.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This research fully supported by the project “Innovative Technological Approaches to Circularity and Urban–Industrial Symbiosis within the Water– Energy–Materials–Fertilizers Nexus (ECO NEXUS)”, Smart Growth, Digitization and Financial Instruments Program, 2021-2027, MySMIS no. 336912.

Authors: Larisa IVASCU, Timea AGACHE, Simon PESCARI, Neta SAPTEBANI, Dragos BORUGA