Digital transition, Sustainable Product-Service System (S.PSS), and environmental sustainability - A systematic review

Recently, the ongoing digital transition has brought forth both new risks and opportunities for environmental sustainability. However, despite some attention given to potential relationships between related areas and a growing research interest therein, a limited number of studies have holistically explored the nexus between digital transition, PSS, and environmental benefits. This research is a systematic literature review focused on the relationship between S.PSS and environmental sustainability during the digital transition process. We propose a novel analytical perspective by synthesizing and mapping the existing literature to derive a potential pathway for digital technologies to optimize four S.PSS relevant factors through four primary approaches (Information/Data Access Optimization, Connectivity & Communication Optimization, Process Optimization, Systemic Optimization ), leading to environmental benefits across six dimensions (Product lifetime extension, Intensive use of Product, efficiency of resources, resources’ renewability, Material life extension and Pollution reduction), and outlining current shortcomings and suggested future research directions. This study identifies broad consensus on the potential significance of digital transition in contributing to the environmental benefits of the product design for environmental sustainability (i.e. Life Cycle Design), but reveals a scarcity of research focusing on other aspects of S.PSS (e.g. service and business model innovation) and environmental benefits (e.g. resource renewability), which need further investigation. This study assists researchers in comprehending the potential environmental impacts of digital technologies when applied to S.PSS, identifying future research priorities to inspire designers to revaluate the new role and competence of S.PSS in promoting sustainable transition in the digital era.