Green Smart Manufacturing: Potentials and Limits Toward Industry 5.0

In recent decades, progressive industrial digitalization has provided companies with an increasing capability to improve the efficiency of processes and quality products. In the recent frameworks of Industry 4.0, the pursuit of greater efficiency in the use of material, energy, and human resources assumes increasing importance in achieving the three goals—environmental, economic, and social—of sustainability. Even if the issue is widely debated, the mechanisms by which these technologies are applied from a life-cycle perspective, how they interact with each other, and how they produce effects on sustainability remain to be explored. The article aims to contribute to filling this gap by investigating the role played by so-called smart technologies in the context of green manufacturing. The study, through a critical analysis of the most recent scientific literature, provides a systematization of the technologies and solutions in the various stages of an ideal product life cycle, highlighting their operating interactions and potential effects in terms of sustainability, toward the future paradigm of Industry 5.0.