Transforming the plastics value chain: introducing a digital maturity assessment tool
Marine plastic waste has emerged as a significant global ecological threat, reaching approximately 150 million metric tons in oceans and escalating at a rate of 8–12 million metric tons annually, with mismanaged plastic waste originating particularly from Asian countries. To address this issue, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) initiated a regional technical assistance project addressing plastic pollution from source to sea in Asia and the Pacific. The project promotes circular economy solutions to curb plastic
waste and restore ocean health. It also includes a digital component focusing on the digitalization of the plastics value chain and accelerating plastic circularity in Indonesia and Viet Nam.
Digital solutions have the potential to accelerate the circularity of plastics. Such solutions include a range of mobile applications or apps, web platforms, digital marketplaces, those enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning solutions. These enable traceability, support the physical and financial aspects of the value chain, and bridge the formal and informal waste management sectors with private sector actors to the post-consumer materials markets. These solutions
can also support and enhance plastic pollution data collection, reporting, and monitoring efforts.
While there are expectations for digital solutions to accelerate the transformation of the plastics value chain to a circular model, there are also challenges to countries’ readiness to apply these digital solutions and realize this potential.
Digitalization of the plastics value chain requires readiness at two levels: the national-level enablers, and the value chain-specific systems and its stakeholders. Both levels influence the ability to operationalize and scale up the application of digital solutions in the plastics value chain. Digitalization efforts must be cognizant of the complex interplay of societal and economic structures, including public, private, and informal sectors, within the plastics value chain.
Evaluating the digital readiness of the plastics value chain in a country, as well as identifying its capabilities and opportunities to support this digital transformation, can help determine the gaps
between its current and target state and define the road map for digitalization of the plastics value chain.
The digital maturity assessment tool developed under the project allows for a quantification of the digital readiness of the plastics value chain at a national level. It can guide relevant government agencies on a pathway to implement digitalization of the value chain. While it is specifically designed for a country level within the context of Southeast Asia, it could also be applied in a city- or provincial-level ecosystem.
Currently, there is no other tool such as this, which has been purposefully built for the digitalization of the plastics value chain.
However, this can be seen as a prototype or a work in progress that can be refined the more it is used and applied in different contexts, to suit various conditions.
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