I4.0 Technologies Adoption and the Environmental Sustainability

The interest of academia in the effects of Industry 4.0 on environmental sustainability has grown during the last few years. For this reason, it is important to analyze the roots of the scientific interest in this topic and identify the main trend of research that nowadays occupies in the academic community. To do so, in the third chapter a systematic literature review adopting a consolidated approach, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA), has been carried out. After having discussed the descriptive characteristics of the selected records, a co-occurrence analysis of the papers is developed with VOSviewer Software. The software includes 4 different theoretical themes that are opportunely illustrated and commented. Consistent with the academic scientific literature, a classification of positive and negative effects of key enabling technologies on natural environment is provided.