Industry 4.0 and Sustainability: Analysis of Impacts and Proposed Guidelines

Abstract

Objective: To survey the impacts of implementing new technologies with the Industry 4.0 concept in a large building materials and related products company and propose sustainable guidelines to minimize negative impacts.   Theoretical Framework: Industry 4.0 technologies provide improvements in the product manufacturing process and industry performance through the use of data, but it is necessary to consider the integration of business with social, environmental and governance issues.   Method: The methodological approach is a single case study, qualitative in nature, applied and exploratory in purpose. In developing the method, a list of impacts caused by the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies was created from the theoretical framework, which gave rise to a questionnaire applied to the building materials and related products company by means of a field survey.   Results and Discussion: 11 impacts were “observed” by the interviewee, 45 impacts, i.e. the majority of them, were classified as “not observed” and 10 impacts were considered to be “not applicable” to existing technologies due to the fact that the company is a retailer. After analyzing the impacts, sustainable guidelines were suggested for each negative impact.   Research Implications: It can be concluded that in most of the literature searched, the economic pillar of sustainability was the most commonly found, thus highlighting the lack of analysis focused on environmental and social issues in the implementation of Industry 4.0 technology in the building materials industry.   Originality/Value: It was observed that with regard to sustainability, the building materials and related products company has several very important practices, however, no studies applied to other companies were found in the scientific literature, a fact that makes the proposed work very important.