Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Sustainable supply chain management examines how firms design, coordinate, and operate the networks through which goods move from raw materials to end users in ways that reduce environmental harm and social cost without sacrificing economic viability. A growing strand of this work centers on the circular economy—the idea that materials should cycle back into production through remanufacturing, refurbishment, or reuse rather than ending up as waste—and asks how supply chain networks and business models need to be restructured to make that possible. Researchers are actively working out when circular strategies genuinely reduce resource consumption at a systems level versus when they simply shift impacts elsewhere, and how firms can align incentives across suppliers, manufacturers, and customers who all bear different costs and capture different benefits from greener practices. The field sits at the intersection of operations research, strategy, and environmental science, and its practical urgency has sharpened as regulatory pressure and material scarcity push the question from corporate responsibility rhetoric toward core business design.

Works

82,411

Total citations

1,655,143

Keywords

Circular EconomySustainable Supply Chain ManagementGreen PracticesSupply Chain Network DesignRemanufacturingBusiness Model Innovation