Sustainability assessment of industrial hemp enabled by Industry 4.0 technology – Industrial Hemp 4.0

The manufacture of biobased products, such as those derived from industrial hemp, has been heralded with great potential for improving industrial sustainability performance. However, due to their renewable nature, complexities in their value chains, and data variability, timely, accurate, and reliable sustainability assessments of biobased products have been impeded. These barriers have been especially problematic for the nascent US hemp industry. This study uses a narrative literature review and sustainability assessment methodologies to address the gap in the sustainability assessment of hemp-based product life cycles by leveraging Industry 4.0 technologies – termed Industrial Hemp 4.0 (IH4.0). IH4.0 encompasses the entire hemp life cycle, involving smart farming, smart manufacturing, smart supply chains, and smart products, with the potential to integrate circularity. An application of this approach is discussed for decortication, an industrial process for separating hemp hurd and fiber for use in textiles, bio-composites, packaging, and construction materials. Conceptually, IH4.0 ensures effective and transparent sustainability assessment, communication, and collaboration in defining, developing, and implementing viable solutions for the emerging hemp industry. Integrating data and information for industrial hemp across the product life cycle can assist designers, manufacturing engineers, and other stakeholders in creating more sustainable products and making more environmentally conscious decisions.