Sustainable supply chain management: evolution, impact and application

Abstract

With growing market demand for various products in the latter half of the 20th century, many organizations ventured into risky but, frugally profitable mode of production thus compromising the long term impact on society as well as environment. However, subsequently over a period of time, world has faced some of the most disastrous industrial accidents. This has forced the stakeholders like regulatory authorities, manufacturers, customers, and society, to reconsider economic business model concepts and question the implications of the business on society and environment. Increasing rates of pollution and environmental calamities caused by industrial production have urged several researchers and industry experts to work on Sustainable Production and Consumption issues within the context of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM). Hence, this study attempts to understand and contribute to the sustainable supply chain literature from three broad perspectives of evolution, impact and application In the first part of the study (Chapter 2), a comprehensive thematic analysis is performed on 1068 studies over the time period 2000-2015, to understand the evolution of sustainability issues by analysing trends over the time, across industries, economies, and use of methodologies during the evolution of SSCM. The study also proposes a conceptual framework to classify various factors along triple bottom line pillars of sustainability issues in the context of supply chains. In-depth study is conducted on 190 articles which focuses on all pillars of sustainability (as per the proposed conceptual framework) on SSCM across different economies to identify publication trend, industry specific studies, and methodological approaches used. It was observed that the studies focusing on all three dimensions of sustainability are comparatively scarce and more focus on industry specific studies is required. The study propose future avenues to extend research in the SSCM domain. In the second part of the study (Chapter 3), a detailed literature review of sustainability research in chemical industry supply chain was done, considering the impact of chemical industries on sustainability.