The Circular Economy as a Requirement for Smart Information System Designs

Information gaps significantly hinder the circular economy (CE). Smart information systems (IS) will play a central role in implementing the CE and the shift toward it. Therefore, implementers of future IS architectures and researchers developing new IS designs must know how CE objectives can be included in the system requirements. Requirements are the starting point of the design process of a smart system and are the basis for assessing the system's success and shortcomings. We present our ongoing research and explain our preliminary design theory for requirements for CE systems. Our supportive design science research approach is based on the kernel theories of the 9R framework, system user levels, and analytics capabilities hierarchy. Hence our resulting system requirements capture the different systems user types, their information needs, and the CE practices or decisions.