The paper develops a Human-Centric Sustainability Framework for Industry 5.0 and recommends strengthening ethical governance, inclusive innovation, workforce reskilling, and sustainability-oriented policies to support resilient and human-centred industrial transformation.
Abstract
The rapid expansion of intelligent technologies and digital transformation has intensified global debates regarding sustainability, ethical governance, industrial resilience, and human well-being within contemporary industrial systems. Industry 5.0 has emerged as a human-centred and sustainability-oriented framework that seeks to balance technological innovation with broader societal and environmental objectives. This paper critically examines the relationship between Industry 5.0, intelligent technologies, and human-centric sustainability in the digital age. The study adopts a conceptual and integrative literature review methodology grounded in an interpretivist research philosophy. The findings reveal that intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT, blockchain, collaborative robotics, and digital twins have substantial potential to improve sustainability, resource efficiency, industrial resilience, and workforce empowerment when responsibly governed. The paper develops a Human-Centric Sustainability Framework for Industry 5.0 and recommends strengthening ethical governance, inclusive innovation, workforce reskilling, and sustainability-oriented policies to support resilient and human-centred industrial transformation.
Industry 5.0 has emerged as a conceptual evolution of the technology-centric Industry 4.0 framework, signifying a heightened imperative to integrate human-centric design principles, environmental stewardship, and systemic robustness into the trajectory of industrial advancement. Contemporary research, in contrast to a singular emphasis on efficiency and automation, increasingly prioritizes the wider social and ecological ramifications of technological advancement. The present paper provides a literature-based synthesis built mainly on three recent academic studies that analyse the evolution and current research structure of the Industry 5.0 concept. This analysis is based solely on existing literature, focusing on the main themes that currently shape academic discussions. It particularly emphasizes the creation of human value, the responsible use of resources, and the ability of industrial systems to adapt, while also recognizing the ongoing importance of advanced digital technologies. A comparative approach is used to clarify the differences in goals, scope, and strategic direction between Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0. The growing academic interest suggests that Industry 5.0 represents a shift towards industrial transformation focused on value creation. This requires more research, both in theory and practice.
Marek Nagy, Katarína Valášková· International Scientific Con...· 0 citations
Industry 5.0 (I5.0) reframes industrial transformation around human-centricity, sustainability, and resilience, raising the need for organisations to develop integrated capabilities that enable the green-digital "twin" transition. This study identifies, validates, and prioritises the organisational capabilities required for the shift towards I5.0. A design-oriented research approach is adopted, combining (i) bibliometric mapping and theory integration to derive an initial capability set, (ii) a two-round Delphi study with international experts from industry, policy, and academia to refine and validate the framework, and (iii) the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to structure expert judgements and derive relative priorities. The resulting framework comprises fifteen capabilities organised into four clusters: Digital Foundations, Responsible Transition, Value-Creation Excellence, and Human-Centric Enablers. Delphi findings indicate strong convergence around technology- and transformation-oriented capabilities, while communication and compliance-related capabilities show greater dispersion, reflecting context sensitivity across sectors, maturity levels, and jurisdictions. AHP results confirm that Digital Foundations and Human-Centric Enablers receive the highest overall priority, followed by Value-Creation Excellence and Responsible Transition. Overall, the findings point to a pragmatic capability-building pathway in which digital and human-centric foundations enable the consistent operationalisation of responsible transition goals and scalable value creation. The study contributes an evidence-based capabilities map to support managerial decisions, capability assessment, and policy and education initiatives aligned with I5.0.
Marco Dautaj, S. Onar, Saman Sarbazvatan et al.· Journal of Environmental Man...· 0 citations
Quality 5.0 has emerged as a human-centric and sustainability-oriented reorientation of quality management within the broader Industry 5.0 discourse. Defined as a sociotechnical quality paradigm that integrates human well-being, environmental sustainability, organisational resilience and digitally enabled process excellence into a unified value-creation logic, Quality 5.0 remains conceptually underdeveloped and empirically underexplored, particularly in developing-economy contexts. This study aims to explore and operationalise practitioner-perceived Quality 5.0 benefits in South African manufacturing.
An exploratory quantitative research design was adopted. Data was collected from 276 manufacturing professionals using a structured questionnaire informed by Quality 4.0, Industry 5.0, sustainable quality management and service-oriented quality literature. Exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation was used to identify underlying benefit dimensions complemented by internal consistency assessment.
The analysis revealed a stable four-factor structure comprising process, people, planet and profit benefit dimensions. The findings indicate that practitioners interpret Quality 5.0 not as a continuation of technology-driven Quality 4.0, but as an integrative and stakeholder-oriented quality paradigm in which digital capabilities are reoriented to support human-centric outcomes, environmental responsibility and long-term organisational resilience.
The study is exploratory in nature and limited by sectoral concentration. The findings should therefore be interpreted as indicative rather than definitive, providing a foundation for further large-scale and cross-contextual validation.
The results offer a diagnostic and sense-making framework for policymakers and industry leaders to identify priority value domains, align technology investments with human and sustainability outcomes and guide context-sensitive Quality 5.0 implementation strategies.
The findings suggest that Quality 5.0 is increasingly perceived as a human-centric approach to quality management in manufacturing. The identification of people- and planet-related benefit dimensions indicates growing awareness of workforce development, human–machine collaboration and environmental responsibility as integral to quality performance. In a developing-economy context such as South Africa, this perception highlights the potential of Quality 5.0 to support improved job quality and more socially responsible manufacturing practices. These implications should be interpreted as indicative, with future research required to empirically assess social and workforce-level outcomes.
This study contributes to the emerging Quality 5.0 literature by offering one of the first empirically informed operationalisations of Quality 5.0 benefits in a developing-country manufacturing context. It provides a structured measurement foundation to support future theory refinement and empirical testing.
N. Mhlongo, N. Sukdeo· International Journal of Qua...· 0 citations
The study concludes that digital transformation represents a holistic redesign of business and social systems rather than a purely technological upgrade.
Bharad waj, Menaka Nayak· International Journal of Eme...· 0 citations
This study investigates the multidimensional impacts of the Industry 5.0 paradigm on logistics and supply chain management, focusing primarily on human-centric digitalization and sustainability dynamics. Within this scope, aspects of operational efficiency, resilience, and financial performance are analysed as complementary dimensions within the thematic synthesis. Emphasising human-centric digitalization, it examines how the integration of advanced technologies with social responsibility principles reshapes supply chain strategies, fosters organisational transformation, and creates competitive advantages in the context of sustainable development. Following the PRISMA protocol, and using the Web of Science Core Collection as the primary database, a systematic literature review of 47 peer-reviewed studies was conducted, mapping thematic linkages among digitalization, resilience, financial outcomes, and sustainability. The synthesis identifies a conceptual framework that positions human–machine collaboration as a central enabler for sustainable transformation, enhancing decision-making, adaptability, energy efficiency, carbon footprint reduction, green innovation, and financial outcomes. Findings highlight interconnected pathways through which digitalization generates both operational gains and long-term strategic resilience. This study contributes an original analytical lens that unites human-centric digitalization, sustainability, resilience, and financial performance within a single framework, offering actionable insights for aligning technological innovation with sustainable supply chain strategies. In particular, the study points to practical pathways such as the use of digital twins for resource optimisation, blockchain for supply chain transparency, and AI-driven solutions for emission reduction.
Suzan Oğuz· Environmental Research and T...· 0 citations
Recently, digital transformation has become a recognized critical facilitator of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. However, this transformation remains fragmented across the sustainability, finance, management, and technology literature. This study offers a bibliometric analysis of 478 publications (2016–2026) drawn from 155 sources, employing a PRISMA-based selection process, followed by a performance analysis and science mapping. The rapidly annual growth, with the research output of 52.04%, is concentrated geographically, particularly in China. The co-citation and keyword co-occurrence analyses reveal the converging thematic streams, encompassing the digital transformation, ESG performance, sustainability reporting, green finance, green innovation, and industry 5.0 transitions. The conceptual mapping indicates a shift from a broad digitalization discourse toward the specialized topics, such as the digital ESG, AI-enabled sustainability systems, and resilience-focused transition frameworks. The study identifies the structural imbalances in the geographic representation and conceptual fragmentation, offering a foundation for future theory-building, comparative empirical studies, and policy-oriented inquiry into the digital pathways for a sustainable transition.
O. Bhandari, Sandip Paudel, Sampurna Paudel· Academia Journal of Humaniti...· 0 citations
