Synergizing Sustainable Materials and Advanced Manufacturing for Sustainability Performance: A Literature Review

The integration of sustainable materials and Industry 4.0 technologies as the overarching paradigm offers significant potential to advance manufacturing sustainability. However, existing research remains fragmented, often focusing on isolated topics such as recycled plastics in additive manufacturing or the use of machine learning and material informatics in material processing. As a result, limited attention has been given to the combined effects of these approaches across the economic, environmental, social, and technological dimensions of sustainability. To address this gap, this study presents a systematic literature review of 156 peer-reviewed articles published between 2015 and 2025 and develops the concept of Sustainable Circular Manufacturing (SCM) as the sweet spot between sustainable materials and Industry 4.0. The review shows that SCM-related studies primarily enhance data acquisition, process transparency, intelligent decision-making, process optimization, automation, and human–technology interaction. The findings also indicate that the literature is strongly weighted toward environmental indicators such as carbon footprint, energy efficiency, and circularity, whereas social sustainability and economic viability remain comparatively underexplored. Building on these insights, the study proposes SCM as an integrative conceptual framework that clarifies the causal pathways linking sustainable material strategies and Industry 4.0 enablers to multidimensional sustainability performance. Finally, the review identifies key implementation barriers and outlines a future research agenda to support digitally enabled circular material strategies.