Anforderungen für Take-Back Systeme im Zeitalter der digitalen Nachhaltigkeit

The transition to sustainable value creation is an important societal goal. Especially in resource-intensive industries, organizations and entire value chains are starting to align their processes with the principles of the circular economy. Product take-back systems are essential for realizing the circular economy. They focus on the recovery of resources by taking back products. Against this background, this article examines the role of information systems (IS) in take-back systems. It also identifies specific aspects of how IS can foster circular economy concerning efficiency, transparency, and effectiveness of product take-back systems. The analysis is used to derive requirements for IS to support take-back systems. In order to derive the requirements, a systematic literature review was carried out to obtain a detailed overview of the aspects of take-back systems and to translate them into IS functions. This analysis resulted in a requirements catalog for take-back IS. The requirements catalog was evaluated and extended by four experts. Finally, the literature review results and expert interviews are used to discuss the implications for enterprise software landscapes. Overall, the results illustrate the fundamental role of digital sustainability and how digital technologies and IS can support resource conservation. Accordingly, this paper’s results help align enterprise software for the transition from a linear to a circular economy.