Digital Technologies for Real-Time Carbon Accounting in Circular Economy Frameworks

Abstract

Carbon accounting has emerged as a key tool to drive the transition to circular economy models and achieve global climate goals. This review examines various digital technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, digital twins, and cloud platforms that play a critical role in accurately and in real-time monitoring of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and facilitate transparency in life-cycle carbon accounting. These technologies can provide a major contribution to data accuracy, but they also represent barriers to the application of low-carbon innovations and floor-filling in chains with improved reliability. However, the growth of these technologies is challenged by problems such as non-independent standards, different methodologies, and limited access to digital infrastructure. It also puts an emphasis on the revolutionary potential of carbon accounting, which is helped by digital tools, to handle carbon emissions in a way that can be seen and verified at a large scale. The technologies that are introduced here enable the quick flow of information from on-the-spot monitoring to evaluation-driven decision-making, thus making the shift to a sustainable, low-carbon economy considerably quicker. The research points out various aspects regarding the technology opportunities and limitations that need to be addressed to ensure the maximum impact of technology in promoting sustainable practices across different industries. This research underscores the importance of developing standardized approaches and cross-sector collaborations to fully leverage digital tools in the carbon accounting space.

Received: 7 August 2025 | Revised: 26 September 2025 | Accepted: 14 October 2025

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Author Contribution Statement

Seyedeh Azadeh Alavi Borazjani: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Shahzada Adeel: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing