“Waste management and blockchain in the Public Administration: preliminary results from a systematic literature review”

The growth of resource production and waste generation leads to severe environmental degradation affecting the health, productivity, and cleanliness of cities making the intervention of Public Administrations (PA) necessary. PAs are responsible for making the right strategic decisions that directly affect communities, yet only with accurate data, it is possible to design systems with the right number of vehicles, establish efficient routes, set targets, and track progress. Studies show how blockchain technology is an opportunity to facilitate a variety of processes, however, there are several conditional challenges that must be overcome to realize blockchain technology’s full potential. This systematic literature review explores the current research topics and challenges regarding blockchain adoption in waste management aiming at sharing future directions for Public Administration. The research has the aim to serve as an overview of the current state-of-art of the blockchain technology solution leading to the obtainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It highlights how blockchain technology applications in waste management have the potential of changing the current organizational patterns and facilitating the Public Administrations in assuring cleanliness and healthy environments for communities. This systematic literature review makes several useful contributions. First, identifying the main research topics and research methods, it enables researchers to identify which areas are yet to be explored and, it shows those that have already been discussed by extent in literature. Second, the need for more in-depth research has emerged in order to have a full understanding of the situations in which blockchain technology is beneficial.