Benchmarking In Supply Chain

Sustainable supply chains: An introduction

Jonathan D. Lintona, , , Robert Klassenb, and Vaidyanathan Jayaramanc,

aPaul Desmarais Professor in the Management of Technological Enterprises, School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ont. K1N 6N5, Canada

bIvey School of Management, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont., Canada

cDepartment of Management, School of Business, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA

Available online 17 January 2007.

Abstract

Consideration is given to the convergence of supply chains and sustainability. In doing so, the focus on environmental management and operations is moved from local optimization of environmental factors to consideration of the entire supply chain during the production, consumption, customer service and post-disposal disposition of products. This is a critical and timely topic that captures increasing concerns over sustainability, whether driven by current legislation, public interest, or competitive opportunity. As such, sustainable development is a rich area for academic research that is still in its infancy and has the potential to affect future government policy, current production operations, and identify new business models. This paper provides a background to better understand current trends in this multidisciplinary field that intersect with operations management, and the research opportunities and challenges it presents.

Keywords: Supply chain; Sustainability; By-products

Article Outline

1. Introduction

2. SustainabilityвЂ"an overview

3. The interaction between sustainability and supply chains

3.1. Product design

3.2. Manufacturing by-products

3.3. By-products produced during product use

3.4. Product life extension

3.5. Product end-of-life

3.6. Recovery processes at end-of-life

4. Linking sustainability and supply chainsвЂ"the big picture

References

1. Introduction

The interaction between sustainability and supply chains is the critical next step from recent examinations of operations and the environment (Corbett and Kleindorfer, 2003) and operations and sustainability (Kleindorfer et al., 2005). While important contributions have been made in relation to environmental operations and policy, strategy, finance, product design, supplier relations and post-consumer product management it is critical to move forward to the systemic issues that exist at the intersection of sustainability, environmental management and supply chains.

This paper gives consideration to both sustainability and supply chains. First, the relationship between these two concepts and previous work on environmental management of operations is considered. Second, new questions and research directions prompted by taking a sustainable supply chain perspective are considered. While many of the resulting areas of research relate directly to operations management, a great number of these open issues are fundamentally interdisciplinary in nature. This interdisciplinary nature is evident from the variety of fields in which researchers and practitioners are considering the challenges and implications of sustainability. Finally, the papers in this special issue are positioned within the growing study of sustainable supply chains.

2. SustainabilityвЂ"an overview

Sustainability is increasingly discussed by policy makers ([President's Council on Sustainable Development, 1996] and [American Chamber of Commerce of Europe, 2004]), the popular press (Anon., 2001) and journals in various technical fields. To provide a sense of its recent dramatic growth, Fig. 1 summarizes the number of articles in different fields that consider sustainability and sustainable development, thereby demonstrating sustainability's interdisciplinary nature.

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Fig. 1. The number of articles in different fields that consider sustainability (articles identified by a search of �sustainability’ or �sustainable development’ performed on Scopus on 6 August 2006).

While the first consideration of sustainability can be traced back to practices of many ancient cultures, more recent attention toward sustainability and the environment can be found in the works of economists and philosophers (e.g., [Harding, 1968] and [Parsons, 1997]). Simultaneously, the concept of sustainability entered the popular culture, such as books вЂ" the Lorax (Geisel, 1971) вЂ" and films вЂ" Soylent Green (Fleischer, 1973). This migrated in the 1990s to the consideration of sustainability in the management literature and has quickly increased since then (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2. Consideration to the concept of sustainability is increasingly found in the management literature (economics, business and management articles identified by a search of �sustainability’ or �sustainable development’ performed on Scopus on 6 August 2006). An increase in publishing frequency of about 3/1000 to 15/1000 articles, over the period under consideration.

The transition from a set of the technical concepts into the political and business mainstream is commonly linked to the book Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987). Sustainability is generally defined as using resources to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs ([WCED, 1987] and [Daly and Cobb, 1994]). Not surprisingly, given the vaguarities that surround this definition, hundreds of different interpretations have evolved to operationalize sustainability. As a result, this all encompassing definition of sustainability raised more questions than answers. These questions include:

• What resources will future generations require?

•