Assessing the sustainability and circularity of product families: A systematic review on indicators and methodologies

Manufacturing companies often adopt the product family approach to offer a wide range of products efficiently and cost-effectively. With the growing emphasis on the sustainability and circularity of product families, extensive research has evaluated these aspects in recent decades. Building upon this existing research, this study aims to identify the most prevalent indicators and methodologies employed for their assessments. A systematic literature review yielded 40 relevant articles. The results reveal that existing indicators and methodologies are often data-intensive and resource-consuming, making the assessment of the sustainability and circularity of product families a complicated and extensive process. Findings also show that only four circularity strategies (i.e., remanufacture, reuse, recycle, and refurbish) were investigated for product families. Furthermore, most circularity indicators considered in these assessments are strategy-specific, and no generic indicators exist for a holistic assessment of circularity for product families. Moreover, most studies focus solely on carbon footprint assessment, overlooking other impact categories. Additionally, the social aspect was scarcely investigated in literature for product families. Finally, most of the reviewed studies evaluated the sustainability and circularity of product families within electric and electronic equipment. Based on these findings, this work underlines the need for more efficient methodologies and indicators, while establishing relationships among economic, environmental, social, and circularity dimensions to support the development of sustainable and circular product families. It is also strongly recommended to assess the impact of additional circularity strategies beyond the four investigated and to broaden environmental impact assessments to include diverse impact categories alongside social considerations.