Alleviating the Impact of the Barriers to Circular Economy Adoption Through Blockchain: An Investigation Using an Integrated MCDM-based QFD With Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets

Despite its clear potential to contribute to sustainability, there are many challenges to adopting circular economy (CE). These barriers impede the implementation of CE; however, research to address them is ongoing. For example, novel technologies have become a key enabler for easing the impact of CE adoption barriers. Blockchain is one disruptive technology that has the potential to address some of those barriers, notably technological, organizational, and ecological. Blockchain is particularly well suited to help address supply chain-oriented barriers to CE adoption. However, a review of the literature shows that while there are a limited number of conceptual studies that address the capabilities of blockchain to alleviate the impact of the barriers to CE, no previous study has focused on this vital subject using a decision tool based on expert data. To this end, this paper proposes an integrated decision framework involving Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM)-based Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method with Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets (HFLTS) to investigate the true potential of blockchain to address the CE adoption barriers. Our findings indicate that enhanced supply chain traceability management, improved collaboration and coordination in supply chain ecosystems, building higher levels of trust in supply chain ecosystems, and enhanced business models are the most significant functions of blockchain to help overcome the CE adoption barriers.