Sustainable business decision modelling with blockchain and digital twins: a survey

Industry 4.0 and beyond will rely heavily on sustainable business decision modelling (BDM) that can be accelerated by blockchain and digital twin (DT) solutions. BDM is built on models and frameworks refined by key identification factors, data analysis, and mathematical or computational aspects applicable to complex business scenarios. Gaining actionable intelligence from collected data for BDM requires a carefully considered infrastructure to ensure data transparency, security, accessibility, and sustainability. Such an infrastructure must also be aligned with the social, economic, and environmental factors. A notable direct impact on BDM concerning resource optimisation, stakeholder engagement, regulatory compliance, and environmental impacts has been identified in this space. Taxonomies are defined in this paper to further understand these segments and evaluate blockchain and DT sustainability features based on an in-depth review of the current state of the art. Based on a rigorous selection procedure, 250 papers were used to evaluate the context of this study using a range of text available from scientific databases, including ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Scopus. Detailed comparative evaluations provide insight into the reachability of the sustainable solution in terms of ideologies, accessibility, and performance overheads. In the context of blockchain, it is understandable that further research is required to attain practically sustainable solutions. Several questions are put forward to motivate further research that significantly impacts BDM. Finally, a case study based on an exemplary supply chain management system (SCMS) is presented to show blockchain and DT's interoperability with BDM.