Sustainable Design of Smart Textiles Toward Circular Economy: An Integrated Decision Framework Based on Product Lifecycle Management

Abstract

Smart textiles are rapidly advancing toward practical applications, driven by the integration of flexible electronics and wearable technologies. However, their heterogeneous multimaterial structures introduce considerable environmental burdens throughout the entire lifecycle, making conventional stage-specific optimization strategies insufficient. From the perspective of product lifecycle management (PLM), this review systematically summarizes sustainable design strategies for smart textiles across the beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-of-life (EOL) stages while further analyzing cross-stage coupling effects and environmental burden-shifting mechanisms. This review highlights that the sustainable optimization of smart textiles does not rely on minimizing environmental impacts within a single stage, but rather on achieving lifecycle synergies among functional performance, durability, reparability, and resource circularity. Building on this perspective, an integrated PLM decision-making framework combining Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled condition monitoring and lifecycle assessment (LCA) is proposed to identify environmental burden transfer pathways and support collaborative optimization across the full lifecycle. With the development of sustainable manufacturing, biodegradable electronic materials, and full-process traceability systems, smart textiles are poised to evolve toward a sustainable paradigm that balances high performance with circularity.