Creating Sustainable Supply Chains

This title provides comprehensive new best practices for building sustainable, 'green and lean' supply chains, from one of the field's most respected experts.

Suitable for graduate students in engineering or business, executive MBA students, and mid-to upper level non-profits and business managers, this book provides guidelines and tools for analyzing the current or proposed supply chain and concepts for improving the sustainability dimensions of the system.

The global sustainability challenge is urgent, tremendous and increasing. From an ecological perspective, the current worldwide resource footprint requires approximately 1.5 planets to sustain existing life, and with current usage would require two planets by 2030. The social impact of ever-growing resource use disproportionately affects the world’s poor – the 3 billion people living on less than $2.50 a day, as they struggle to acquire what is needed to survive. The serious ecological and social challenges we face in trying to establish global sustainable supply chains must not be underestimated, yet so far research has largely ignored the social dimension in favour of the environmental and economic. So how can we develop business strategies that move away from a primary economic focus and give equal weight to people, planet and profit? How can we create sustainable supply chains that take a true triple-bottom-line approach?Implementing Triple Bottom Line Sustainability into Global Supply Chains features innovative research, highlighting new cases, approaches and concepts in how to successfully implement sustainability – covering economic, ecological and social dimensions – into global supply chains. The four parts cover the rationale for sustainable global supply chains, key enablers, case studies showing clear implementation steps, and directions for future research and development.This book is a must-read for any academic researching in sustainable supply chain management, procurement or business strategy, and for business leaders seeking cases that will inform a critical step forward for CSR programmes.

Organizations worldwide are reporting their commitment to create sustainable supply chains. Ultimately, supply chain professionals are the drivers of change within their respective organizations, so this dissertation examines the role of communication as a tool to persuade supply chain professionals to create sustainable supply chains. The three studies within this dissertation employ different methodologies to examine the role of communication in the development and implementation of sustainability initiatives. The first study, a grounded theory investigation, highlights the network, communication, and structural factors that provide a strong business case for the development of sustainability initiatives. A strong business case influences the supply chain professionals' intentions positively and thereby leads to the voluntary adoption of activities conducive to the creation of a sustainable supply chain. While the first study outlines the important factors for the creation of a sustainable supply chain, the latter studies provide evidence of the efficacy of communication in motivating employees and supply chain partners to develop and implement sustainability initiatives. The second study, a field experiment, draws on the social psychology literature to highlight the effectiveness of normative messages in motivating voluntary pro-environmental behavior of employees (VPBE). The experiment used a 6x1 experimental design, and featured 645 trucks in a medium-sized trucking firm whose drivers received weekly messages. Two of the five messages were effective in inducing pro-environmental behavior. The third study, a vignette-based experiment, is built on the tenets of goal framing and investigates the role of inter-organizational communication as a means of persuasion for supply chain managers to implement sustainability initiatives within their organization. The results reveal the efficacy of tailoring communication based on the supply chain manager's focus on sustainability. Together the three studies highlight the need to align communications and job responsibilities, which provides managerial insights regarding effective inter- and intra-organizational communications in the creation of sustainable supply chains. Thus, the dissertation contributes to the extant supply chain literature by highlighting the fact that communication as a tool is not limited to information exchange but can also be utilized for persuasion.

This book focuses on the need to develop sustainable supply chains - economically, environmentally and socially. This book is not about a wish list of impractical choices, but the reality of decisions faced by all those involved in supply chain management today. Our definition of sustainable supply chains is not restricted to so-called "green" supply chains, but recognises that in order to be truly sustainable, supply chains must operate within a realistic financial structure, as well as contribute value to our society. Supply chains are not sustainable unless they are realistically funded and valued. Thus, a real definition of sustainable supply chain management must take account of all relevant economic, social and environmental issues. This book contains examples from a wide range of real-life case studies, and synthesizes the learnings from these many different situations to provide the fundamental building blocks at the centre of successful logistics and supply chain management.

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 was not caused by BP, but by a contractor, yet BP got the blame. The toxic waste from the production of Apple products dumped in China in 2011 was not dumped by Apple, but by a supplier, yet Apple got the blame. The horsemeat found in beef burgers in 2013 was not added by Tesco, but by a supplier, yet Tesco got the blame. In all three cases, blame for the damage caused by suppliers floated up through the supply chain until it lodged with the big brand at the top. No longer can companies constrain their corporate responsibility within the factory fence, as that boundary is not recognized by outside observers. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that the majority of most organizations’ environmental footprint lies in their supply chain. This means that, to address the sustainability agenda in a meaningful way, they must tackle the impacts of their suppliers. Unfortunately this is a huge challenge as visibility and influence diminishes quickly as you start to work your way down through the layers of suppliers. This book gives a quick but comprehensive guide to the most effective techniques to help you proactively address environmental risks in the supply chain. It covers the following: the business case for a sustainable supply chain; supply chains and sustainability: the big picture; making supply chains sustainable: the fundamentals; basic techniques: the "hard yards" of green procurement; intermediate techniques: those requiring changes to operations and products/services; advanced techniques: changes to the business model and corporate philosophy.The book draws upon exclusive interviews with top sustainability practitioners along with the practical experiences of the author to provide real world examples at the cutting edge.

The global sustainability challenge is urgent, tremendous and increasing. From an ecological perspective, the current worldwide resource footprint requires approximately 1.5 planets to sustain existing life, and with current usage would require two planets by 2030. The social impact of ever-growing resource use disproportionately affects the world’s poor – the 3 billion people living on less than $2.50 a day, as they struggle to acquire what is needed to survive. The serious ecological and social challenges we face in trying to establish global sustainable supply chains must not be underestimated, yet so far research has largely ignored the social dimension in favour of the environmental and economic. So how can we develop business strategies that move away from a primary economic focus and give equal weight to people, planet and profit? How can we create sustainable supply chains that take a true triple-bottom-line approach?Implementing Triple Bottom Line Sustainability into Global Supply Chains features innovative research, highlighting new cases, approaches and concepts in how to successfully implement sustainability – covering economic, ecological and social dimensions – into global supply chains. The four parts cover the rationale for sustainable global supply chains, key enablers, case studies showing clear implementation steps, and directions for future research and development.This book is a must-read for any academic researching in sustainable supply chain management, procurement or business strategy, and for business leaders seeking cases that will inform a critical step forward for CSR programmes.

Supply chains are currently globalized and companies operate internationally owing to the fact that raw materials, production processes, and the consumption of the final products are carried out in different countries. This implies high material and information flow, which incurs high costs associated with the supply chain and logistics, sometimes up to 60% of the total cost of the product. Therefore, companies seek to optimize their resources to reduce these costs and improve sustainability in a globalized market. This book, entitled Tools, Methodologies and Techniques Applied to Sustainable Supply Chains, contains 15 chapters that report case studies applied to industrial and service sectors. The authors come from areas such as Mexico, Colombia, Italy, Sweden, Slovakia, China, and Australia. They indicate how managers make use of tools and techniques to solve problems associated with supply chains to reduce their cost and remain competitive. A great effort has been made to analyze this problem, and the methodologies are clearly described here to facilitate the reproducibility of each technique and tool. This was done in the hope that hoping that they may one day be applied in more companies.

All businesses strive for excellence in today’s technology-based environment in which customers want solutions at the touch of a button. This highly regarded textbook provides in-depth coverage of the principles of operations and supply chain management and explains how to design, implement, and maintain processes for sustainable competitive advantage. This text offers a unique combination of theory and practice with a strategic, results-driven approach. Now in its fourth edition, Operations Management for Business Excellence has been updated to reflect major advances and future trends in supply chain management. A new chapter on advanced supply chain concepts covers novel logistics technology, information systems, customer proximity, sustainability, and the use of multiple sales channels. As a platform for discussion, the exploration of future trends includes self-driving vehicles, automation and robotics, and omnichannel retailing. Features include: A host of international case studies and examples to demonstrate how theory translates to practice, including Airbus, Hewlett Packard, Puma, and Toyota. A consistent structure to aid learning and retention: Each chapter begins with a detailed set of learning objectives and finishes with a chapter summary, a set of discussion questions and a list of key terms. Fully comprehensive with an emphasis on the practical, this textbook should be core reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of operations management and supply chain management. It would also appeal to executives who desire an understanding of how to achieve and maintain ‘excellence’ in business. Online resources include lecture slides, a glossary, test questions, downloadable figures, and a bonus chapter on project management.

As we enter the 21st Century, we find ourselves faced by two major developments. The first is emergence of the supply chain as a critical strategic and tactical weapon. As has been pointed out by many researchers, with the emergence of the supply chain, the unit of competition has shifted from the firm to the supply chain. However, with the advent of the supply chain, it is important to recognize that we have to view strategic objectives within a context that stresses not simply the internal operations of the firm but also the elements of the supply chain - elements that include the supplier base, customers, logistics linkages, and relationships, both visible and virtual. We are now coming to realize that the supply chain is no stronger than its weakest link. The second development is that of sustainability. This is more than simply being environmentally responsible. Rather, it is overall sustainability as measured in terms of the firm's ability to reduce waste, improve profitability, generating strategic competitive advantages, and ensure that it treats its employees well. Sustainability is increasingly becoming at a minimum an expectation and a requirement for doing business (i.e., an order qualifier) and under many conditions something that differentiates firms and makes them more attractive to potential critical consumers (i.e., an order winner). These two developments, while often treated as separate entities, are interrelated. It is this interrelationship that forms the major focus and thrust of this book. This book presents the reader with an integrated, business oriented treatment of sustainable supply chain management that explores why it is no longer enough for a firm to focus on sustainability within the four walls of the firm. Rather, in today's environment, sustainability must involve the supply chain in a deliberate and integrated fashion. To succeed with sustainability, a firm must ensure that this outcome is not only present within the firm but is also present within the supply chain. As the book will show, the market and consumers will punish those firms that promise sustainability but are not able to deliver on this promise because of problems in the supply chain.