A Literature Review and A Case Study of Sustainable Supply Chians With A Focus On Metrics

Int. J.
Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Int. J. Production Economics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe
A literature review and a case study of sustainable supply chains with

a focus on metrics
Elka Hassini a,n, Chirag Surti b, Cory Searcy c
a
DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Faculty of Business & IT, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
c
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
b
a r t i c l e i n f o
abstract
Article history:
Received 31 October 2010
Accepted 30 January 2012
Available online 8 February 2012
We review the literature on sustainable supply chains during the last decade; 20002010. We analyze
the literature from different perspectives. We then provide frameworks for sustainable supply chain
management and performance measures. We also provide a case study to illustrate the experience of a
utility supply chain in setting performance indicators.
& 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Sustainable supply chain
Performance measurement
1. Introduction
The topic of supply chain sustainability has been of great
interest for the last decade both in academia and the practitioners world. Due largely to pressures from various stakeholders, especially government regulators, community activists,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and global competition,
many companies have adopted a certain level of commitment to
sustainability practices. Some of these commitments are sometimes supercial and non-compulsory, for example including the
motto Think before you print in a companys electronic mail
communications. Other companies are still hesitant to commit to
sustainability measures, as long as they are not forced to do so by
law. The common trait between these companies is that they do
not have a common standard for evaluating sustainability initiatives (e.g., Searcy et al., 2009; Tweed, 2010). Some authors even
argue that there are incompatibilities between the known principles of performance measures and supply chain dynamics (e.g.,
see Lehtinen and Ahola, 2010). Thus, there is a need for more
research on developing an appropriate framework for performance measurements in supply chains. It is our goal in this paper
to survey the literature and extract a common framework for
sustainable supply chain performance measures and metrics.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the next
section we outline the review objectives and methodology. In
Section 3 we provide a denition of sustainable supply chain
management. The results of our review are presented in Section 4.
In Section 5 we describe two frameworks: one for managing
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hassini@mcmaster.ca (E. Hassini).
0925-5273/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2012.01.042
sustainable supply chains and the other for the development of

performance measures for sustainable supply chains. A case study
to illustrate the experience of an electric utility company in
setting performance indicators is reported in Section 6. Finally,
in Section 7 we conclude and suggest a future research agenda for
the eld of sustainable supply chain management.
2. Objectives and methodology

The purpose of our research is to (i) review sustainable supply
chain management research in the last decade and analyze it from
different perspectives, (ii) propose a unied conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management, (iii) highlight the
importance of reliable supply chain performance measures and
develop and propose a composite index metric, (iv) present a case
study of sustainable supply chain performance indicators in a the
energy sector, and (v) highlight the gaps in the literature that
need further investigation.
We reviewed papers from journals and sources that cater
mainly to social and applied sciences, unless the work discussed
a general and imitable sustainable practice, it was excluded
from the review. The focus of this paper is to analyze and extract
relevant literature from journals that can help both academics
and practitioners formulate a response tailored to their business
needs. Thus this paper is focused on the tactical and the operational aspect of sustainable supply chains.
We started the review process by searching Title, Abstract and
Keyword in SCOPUS with keywords (sustainable OR green) AND
(supply AND chain) and further restricting results to just peer
reviewed articles published in English language journals after 1999.
This gave us a total of 707 articles in various subject area categories.
70
E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982
International Journal of Production Research

Journal of Operations Management
International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management
International Journal of Operations and Production Management
International Journal of Production Economics
European Journal of Operational Research
Production Planning and Control
Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review
International Journal of Technology Management
Production and Operations Management
Management Science
Computers and Operations Research
International Journal of Management and Decision Making
Omega
Computers and Industrial Engineering
Computers in Industry
Enterprise Information Systems
Foundations and Trends in Tech. Info. and Op. Management
Interfaces
International Journal of Information Management
International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications
International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development
International Journal of Operational Research
International Journal of Process Management and Benchmarking
International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management
International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management
International Journal of Services and Operations Management
TQM Journal
Journal of the Operational Research Society
0
10
12
14
Fig. 1. Distribution of reviewed papers by journal.
25
140
All Publications
120
20
All Publications
100
15
80
60
10
40
5
20
Publications in Decision Science Journals
Decision Science Publications
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Fig. 2. Distribution of reviewed and other relevant papers by publication year.
Next, we restricted the articles by subject area, requiring that they be

only published in category Decision Sciences resulting in 87 articles.
We chose to focus on the Decision Sciences subject area because we
are targeting to publish the review in journals that are within this
subject area. Fig. 1 shows the distribution of reviewed papers by
journal. It is worth noting that ve journals account for about 50% of
the reviewed publications.
Fig. 2 shows the distribution by publication year of the
reviewed papers as well as all the articles that fell under our
search criteria. Barring the distribution at the right tale, due to the
possibility of additional publications in the pipeline, it is evident
that there is an increasing trend manifesting the increasing
interest in this research area.
While including all the 707 papers in the review is not practical,
we also realize that restricting our study to the 87 papers may not
allow us to cover all the important issues related to sustainable

supply chains. Thus, whenever we nd that the 87 pool of papers
does not include a sufcient number of studies on a particular issue,
we extend our search to the larger database of 707 papers.
For example, to study publications in different industry sectors
and rm sizes we have enlarged our papers pool to the 707 papers.
To help the reader distinguish between the two pools of papers we
include them in different sections in the bibliography.
3. Denition of sustainable supply chain management

As in Chopra and Meindl (2007), we dene a supply chain as all
parties involved in fullling a customer order. In particular, we
stress the fact that more than one decision maker is involved in
managing resources, information, and/or processes that may not be
entirely under the control of their company. In addition we dene
supply chain management as the control of the supply chain
operations, resources, information and funds in order to maximize
the supply chain protability or surplusthe difference between
the revenue generated from a customers order and all the costs
incurred by the supply chain while satisfying that customers order.
We dene business sustainability as the ability to conduct business
with a long term goal of maintaining the well-being of the economy,
environment and society. Elkington (1997) is credited with popularizing the latter three dimensions, which he called the triple bottom
line (TBL) principle (also known as the three pillars: prot, planet,
and people). As a sign of their sustainability practices companies
issue periodic TBL reports to their stakeholders. We are now ready
to provide a unied denition for sustainable supply chain management as the management of supply chain operations, resources,
information, and funds in order to maximize the supply chain
protability while at the same time minimizing the environmental
impacts and maximizing the social well-being.
By social well-being, as used in the above denition, we mean

how the supply chain treats its employees, customers and the
community at large. The above denition implies that companies
that practice sustainable supply chain management strive to
satisfy multiple, possibly conicting, objectives: while maximizing prots calls for reducing operations costs, minimizing the
environmental impacts and maximizing the social well-being can
add to the supply chains operational costs. In addition the
challenge of conicting objectives, the denition also implies
other challenges to supply chain managers: dealing with multiple
decision makers and assessing the environmental impacts and
social benets in a multi-party supply chain.
4. Review results and classications

In this section we report our analysis of the literature we have
reviewed. We start by highlighting some of the recent related
reviews.
4.1. Related reviews

Reviews on sustainability in a supply chain or operational
context have largely focused on a broad and strategic overview.
Teuteberg and Wittstruck (2010) have published a systematic
review. Although their main research question is What is there
and what is missing? they have restricted their attention to only
nine journals and reviewed studies from the year 1995. Earlier,
Srivastava (2007) reviewed 227 books and articles from 1994 to
2007. The focus of the review was on green aspects and the study
adopted a reverse-logistics approach. Two other recent studies
have focused on providing a literature review together with a
conceptual framework for sustainable supply chains: Seuring and
Muller (2008) reviewed 191 journal articles from 1994 to 2007
and Carter and Rogers (2008) reviewed 166 publications and
interviewed 35 supply chain managers in 28 Fortune 1000
companies in the USA and Germany.
4.2. Classication by industry sector

We list various industry sectors of the economy in Table 1. Our
classication of the sectors is similar to the GICS1 Standards. We
believe that such a classication is important since sustainable
practices that work for one industry may not work for other
industries. We note that the majority of the reviewed literature
focuses on manufacturing sectors. On the other hand, we did not
nd any study that focused on the Information and Communication Technologies. This is despite the fact that in their 2010
NewsWeek Green Rankings, six of the top ten companies in the
US are ICT companies (Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Adobe, and Yahoo!)
(NewsWeek, 2010).
We believe the focus on sustainability in the manufacturing sector
can be explained by two factors. Firstly, traditionally operations
research has focused on production and manufacturing topics and
thus it is only natural that sustainable supply chain research builds on
that literature. This view is supported by the literature that argues
that companies that adopt lean manufacturing strategies are more
likely to adopt sustainability practices (e.g., King and Lenox, 2001).
Secondly, historically environmental regulations has focused on
manufacturing plants (e.g., pollution control).
1
http://www.mscibarra.com/products/indices/gics/.
71
Table 1
Industry research.
Industry sector
Publications
Agriculture, wine, horticulture, etc. Higgins et al. (2010), Hall and Matos
(2010), Van Der Vorst et al. (2009), Matos
and Hall (2007), Cox et al. (2007)
Automotive
Nunes and Bennett (2010), Thun and
Muller (2010), Subramoniam et al.
(2009), Beske et al. (2008), Ding et al.
(2007), Kim et al. (2007), Seitz and Wells
(2006), Van Hoek (2002), Early et al.
(2009)
Education
Hawkins and Matthews (2009), Roome
(2005)
Electrical, electronics
Park et al. (2010), Hu and Bidanda
(2009), Hsu and Hu (2009), Nawrocka
(2008), Rai et al. (2006), Savaskan et al.
(2004), Frota Neto et al. (2010)
Fashion, retail, grocery
de Brito et al. (2008)
Government, NGO
Boons and Mendoza (2010), Preuss
(2009)
Healthcare, pharmaceuticals
Schieble (2008), Veleva et al. (2003)
Hospitality, catering, tourism
Font et al. (2008), Hawkins (2004),
Adriana (2009)
Housing, construction, real estate
Blengini and Garbarino (2010), Isaksson
and Steimle (2009), Ofori (2000)
ICT
None
Industrial or manufacturing exclu. Testa and Iraldo (2010), Simpson (2010),
Yang et al. (2010), Holt and Ghobadian
automotive, electrical,
(2009), Huang et al. (2009), Chung and
electronics
Wee (2008), Marsillac (2008), Vachon
and Klassen (2008)
Zhu et al. (2008b), Vachon (2007),
Corbett and Klassen (2006), Kainuma and
Tawara (2006), Sarkis (2006), Wells and
Seitz (2005), Zhu and Sarkis (2004),
Savaskan et al. (2004), Albino et al.
(2002)
Materials, mining, and energy
Matos and Hall (2007), Huang et al.,
(2009), Haibin and Zhenling (2010),
Ferretti et al. (2007)
Transportation and logistics
Frota Neto et al. (2009), Ciliberti et al.
(2008), Frota Neto et al. (2008), Kim
(2009)
Utilities
Boons and Mendoza (2010), Sheu (2008)
4.3. Firm size and sustainability

Tomomi (2010), Moore and Manring (2009), Lee and Klassen
(2008), and Lee (2008) have focused on the adoption of green or
sustainable practices in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
One of the major challenges that SMEs face in relation to adoption
of sustainable practices in the supply chain is the signicant
upfront cost of greening. Sarkis (2006) found that early adoption
and increased investment in environment risk management did
not increase performance for small rms in the metal nishing
industry. Testa and Iraldo (2010) analyzed the determinants and
motivations for the implementation of green practices at facilities
owned by large multinational enterprises in OECD countries. They
conclude that although these practices are complementary to
advanced management practices their impact on the bottom line
is ambiguous. While it is acknowledged that large rms have an
advantage for adopting sustainable practices more than SMEs and
that SMEs adoption is necessary in the long run, these studies
found that the rate of return on early adoption is not encouraging.
Thus, we believe more research is required in this area.
4.4. Research methods
Fig. 3 shows the distribution of reviewed papers by the type of
methodology used.
72
Supply Chain Drivers
Research Method for Decision Science Journals
40
35
Transportation and
logistics
36
30
Information
25
Facilities
20
19
15
18
10
Sourcing and
purchasing
Pricing
14
0
Methodological, analytical,
mathematical
Case study
Review
Empirical model
10
12
14
16
18
20
Fig. 4. Distribution of reviewed papers by supply chain driver.

Fig. 3. Distribution of reviewed papers by research methodology.
Given our focus on decision sciences publications, it is not

surprising that the majority of the surveyed papers use analytical
models. These studies focus on solving problems that deal with
facility location (Srivastava, 2008; Dou and Sarkis, 2010), scheduling (Lejeune, 2006), supplier selection, policy assessment, etc.
This includes, use of optimization concepts (Cannon et al., 2005),
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) (Che, 2010), Fuzzy decision
making (Tsai and Hung, 2009), heuristics such as genetic algorithm (Wang and Hsu, 2010), simulation (Van Der Vorst et al.,
2009; Vlachos et al., 2007) and exergoeconomics (Ji, 2008).
Another popular decision support method is Life Cycle Costing
or Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) used to evaluate the total impact
of the goods or products on the environment from extraction of
raw materials to eventual disposal or abandonment into landll
(Matos and Hall, 2007; Frota Neto et al., 2010; Hu and Bidanda,
2009; Singh et al., 2008).
The second most used method is the case study. This is in
contrast to the trend in operations management research where
case study research is not well utilized. This can be explained by
the fact that the sustainability area is a relatively new research
eld and researchers need to do more case study work to understand the real issues and problems, something that case study
methodology is well-suited for (McCutcheon and Meredith,
1993).
4.5. Supply chain drivers
Chopra and Meindl (2007) have dened six major drivers for
supply chain performance: transportation, inventory, facilities,
information, pricing, and sourcing. They also provide a framework
for supply chain analysis that proceeds by rst understanding the
supply chain competitive strategy and its t with the operational
strategy and how they can be deployed by each driver. Thus, it is
expected that a company that emphasizes sustainability in its
competitive strategy would reect it in each of the six drivers of
the supply chain. To investigate how this is reected in the papers
we have reviewed, Fig. 4 shows the distribution of the reviewed
papers by driver.
We note that most studies focused on transportation (including logistics and distribution) and information drivers. There are
no studies that focus on the inventory driver and only one paper
that addresses the pricing driver. There were many papers (29)
that focused on closed-loop supply chains, but they did not
address inventory explicitly as a driver for the supply chain
performance. Our explanation for this disparity in the emphasis
on supply chain drivers is two-fold: (i) companies focus on the
Supply Chain Entity
35
30
31
25
20
20
15
15
10
5
1
Retailer
Customer
0
Supplier
Whole enterprise Manufacturer
Fig. 5. Distribution of reviewed papers by supply chain partner.
information driver to set the technology infrastructure as a sign of

an early stage of implementing sustainability practices and (ii)
the focus on the transportation driver could be explained by the
pressure from external stakeholders where the emphasis was on
greenhouse gas emissions and pollution reduction. The US
Department of Energys National Energy Renewable Lab (NERL)
is developing the US Life-cycle Inventory Database.2 According to
NERL; y[this] database is a publicly available database that allows
users to objectively review and compare analysis results that are
based on similar data collection and analysis methods. This database is created to help practitioners answer questions about
environmental impact. It provides individual gate-to-gate, cradle-to-gate and cradle-to-grave accounting of the energy and
material ows into and out of the environment that are associated
with producing a material, component, or assembly in the US
Such a database could serve as useful source for sustainable
supply chain research on inventory.
4.6. Supply chain partner

Fig. 5 shows the distribution of the papers according the which
party of the supply chain was the focus of study.
2
http://www.nrel.gov/lci.
We see that the majority of papers focus on the manufacturer.

This can be explained using the same factors that we outlined in
the industry classication. We also note the focus on the whole
enterprise, with no emphasis on the nature of the party, and
suppliers. The focus on suppliers can be partly explained by the
pressure that they would feel from their customers, such as the
case of retailers like Walmart.
5. Frameworks for sustainable supply chain management and

evaluation
5.1. Sustainable supply chain management framework
We envisage a sustainable supply chain as wheels constituting
of six spokes, representing the major relevant functions within
the chain: sourcing, transformation, delivery, value proposition,
customers, and recycling (see Fig. 6).
In Fig. 7 we illustrate the important issues for each function. In
the next section we discuss each of these functions. In the
subsequent section we outline the major factors that could have
an impact of these functions.
5.1.1. Sustainable supply chain functions
Sourcing and Transformation are critical functions in a sustainable supply chain. One of the key aspects of green and sustainable
supply chain is the use of green procurement practices (Varnas
et al., 2009; Bala et al., 2008; Johnson et al., 2008; Dawson and
Probert, 2007; Handeld et al., 1997). The idea is that the focal
company in the supply chain will force its upstream suppliers to
adopt and adapt technology and practices that result in more
efciently and environmentally friendly material sources, engage
in labor practices that are considered ethical and result in lower
green house gas (GHG) emissions as well as low impact on the
environment. However, Beamon (1999) points out that using such
practices may make the supply of inputs more unreliable. Many
companies that source from impoverished regions of the world
Reuse,
Recycle,
Return
Customers and
product use
Value
Proposition
Sourcing
Transformation
Delivery
Fig. 6. Framework for sustainable supply chains.
73
now engage in what are called fair trade practices. The idea is to
pay more for commodities like coffee and cotton since they
usually fetch a higher price in the West as nished goods.
However, usually it means that it is the customer who pays the
higher price, as these costs are usually passed on by the business.
Mining and energy companies that extract material from the
ground, inevitably tend to damage the surrounding area. Use of
toxic chemicals in the rening process and production of GHG
emissions is an ongoing issue. However, many businesses have
switched from consumption of non renewable resources to
renewable ones at a higher price. For example, using electricity
produced from green alternatives instead of fossil fuels, using
recycled paper and plastics where possible or using non-toxic
chemicals in their processes.
The delivery process is a broad term used to encompass many
operational processes. The choice of location such as offshore vs.
onshore, close to the customer vs. close to the raw material source
can have a signicant impact on the GHG emissions. The choice of
mode of transportation is an important decision to GHG emissions, however, at the same time the need to have the product
delivered on time quickly and cheaply is a key concern for any
business e.g., rail and waterways usually have lower emissions for
a ton of goods shipped but they are slower than trucks and
airplanes which have higher costs and emissions. Time sensitive
and high value items still get shipped via truck and air, however,
the focus has shifted towards making less bulky goods so as to
ship more (Dou and Sarkis, 2010; Triantafyllou and Cherrett,
2010). One of the least investigated issues in sustainable practices
is the choice of inventory management policy. For example single
period and multi-period models aim to lower the total stock out,
backorder and salvage costs and do not incorporate sustainability
criteria in the decision making framework.
One of the key decision criteria missing so far from the green,
sustainable supply chain models is the role of the consumers. The
traditional view of the product life cycle has focused on the
sourcing of raw materials, the transformation and delivery process, customer use over the useful life and the end of life where the
product is either abandoned to a landll, recycled into raw
materials, reused, returned or re-manufactured for consumption.
However, the value proposition is usually not explicitly considered. Many businesses that sell environmentally friendly, green or
sustainable, low carbon emission products tend to cost more. This
cost is usually passed onto the consumers in the form of higher
prices. Often, as in the case of consumers buying carbon offsets,
these are tangential decisions independent of product purchase
decisions. In order to successfully market and sell green or
sustainable products, many businesses will have to not only
quantify the benets but justify the value proposition to the
customers. In the case of products that are certied green e.g.,
carbonfund.org or retail processes that use more expensive green
energy for operations e.g., bullfrogpower, clear economical justication for passing on the higher costs to the customers is often
missing.
For sourcing of raw materials, the use of renewable resources
including recycled materials is a key operational feature. However, using a source of material that is renewable may not
translate into consumer acceptance or willingness to buy the
product. Similarly fair trade practices result in higher prices for
the consumers, many of whom in lean times have proved to be
unwilling to pay extra for such practices. The mining and extraction of natural resources is a matter of concern to many. However,
in the absence of a viable alternative to such practices, they will
continue. One of the major pushes by businesses has been to
avoid using toxic substances in manufacturing their products. For
example, Apple no longer uses toxic substances in their electronics as a way to reduce future liabilities stemming from its use.
74
Sourcing
Renewable
Resource
Fair trade
practices
Damage to the
environment
Toxic Substances
GHG Emissions
Transformation
Sustainable practices and processes
Fair Labour Practices
Delivery
Facilities location
and layout
Transportation
Inventory
GHG Emissions
Value Proposition
Pay more and Feel good
factor
Snowball effect
Marketing and PR
Customers and product use
Energy efficency
Use of green energy
Customer education
GHG Emissions
Reuse, Recycle, Return

Can the product be returned
to the OEM?
Can the product be reused in

a different form?
Can the product be

efficiently recycled?
Fig. 7. Issues for sustainable supply chain management.
GM marketed Flexfuel car models that had engines that are able
to run on both gasoline as well as bioethenols. However, the key
value proposition in this case was neither well communicated nor
clearly understood by the consumers. Bioethnols make use of corn
or soy depriving many of an affordable food source. They do not
have the same energy density as that of traditional hydrocarbons
and a sufciently widespread infrastructure does not exist so as to
supply bioethnols to consumers. Furthermore, use of such fuels
may drive up prices for grains resulting in food shortages.
In the absence of clear and quantiable personal or environmental benets, customers will either ignore marketing of such
products, attract consumer lawsuits or regulatory oversight for
use of allegedly deceptive practices. Often, paying more for the
purchase of such goods is justied on the basis of saving the
environment, doing the right thing, or feeling good about doing
the right thing. Such logic makes use of Veblens paradox
(Zarovski, 2003, p. 206). Furthermore, Bullfrogpower explicitly

uses the logic of snowball effect for the marketing of green power.
The idea being that if more customers demand more expensive
electricity because it is the right thing to do, more businesses will
produce and demand such electricity for operations. Some of
these ideas and issues are addressed and justied using the TBL
approach (Wang and Lin, 2007).
Based on life cycle assessment of many consumer goods, such
as cars and computers, a signicant proportion of emissions
comes from the consumers use of products. Making goods more
energy efcient is certainly a key objective of any enterprise.
The reuse, recycle and return (3R) is a well researched issue in
the literature on closed-loop supply chains and reverse logistics.
The idea being that the product will eventually be disassembled
and components reused, re-manufactured or recycled into a
source of raw materials.
The above functions major issues are summarized in Fig. 7. As

shown in Fig. 6 the reusable material ends up in the sourcing
spoke and the sustainable wheel keeps turning.
5.1.2. Major factors for the adoption of sustainable supply chain

practices
Fig. 8 shows the major external and internal pressures that
may push a supply chain to adopt sustainable operations.
Market forces factors include consumers, retailers, OEMs who
may demand products considered environmentally friendly from
their suppliers. Financial stakeholders such as mutual funds and
pensions funds require that the company follow sustainable practices as described by them or some third party. Furthermore, in the
future access to capital markets may be restricted only to businesses
that are deemed to be ethical or environmentally friendly. Finally,
competition in the marketplace may require a company to offer
products considered as socially responsible, green or sustainable.
Policy and regulations factors come from governments either
through legislation or via a regulator requiring that companies
adhere to certain environmental standards. In case of environmental disaster (example BP), governments may retroactively
introduce legislation or regulation to curtail certain business
practices. In addition, industry standards (such ISO 14001)
require suppliers to carry audits and certications. For example,
Klassen and Vachon (2003) found that adoption of ISO 4001 is
signicantly related to companies efforts to invest more in
environmental management practices.
The science and technology factor stems from the need to use
R&D to nd materials and processes that are not toxic, use less
energy or nd suitable substitutes without compromising use.
The product development factor involves the greening of the
existing product (e.g., using more recycled content, using biodegradable materials or alternative sources of fuels and materials)
and developing new green sustainable products (e.g., reverse
logistics, design for disassembly, using renewable resources, and
using biodegradable materials).
The process capability factor calls for greening the existing
process (e.g., energy efcient machines, fuel-efcient transportation,
etc.). In order to have an affordable and a competitive product
consistently delivered to the consumer, the process of producing the
product will have to be environmentally capable. In case of returns
75
after the useful life of the product, the supply chain would also have
to secure that the process is capable of absorbing returns into
manufacturing or production of new goods.
The sourcing and operations factors push businesses to engage
in green sourcing practices, sometimes forcing suppliers to adopt
or adapt processes to be more environmentally friendly. Companies like Subaru and Toyota claim to operate a zero-waste facility
as a means of reducing costs and helping the environment. They
secure zero wastes by making sure that no by-product of their
operations ends up in a landll.
The transport and logistics factors direct companies to consider the economics of reverse logistics and closed loop supply
chains and reuse, recycle and return programs.
The marketing and public relations factors refer the efforts of
companies to create a value proposition for the customers,
especially when the environmentally friendly product is more
expensive. Companies have to also create awareness of the
practices that makes the product more environmentally friendly
or makes it sustainable, e.g., use Carbonfund or Bullfrogpower as a
means to signal to customers that the product is environmentally
friendly via the use of logos and co-branding. Just like focal
companies in the supply chain force their upstream suppliers to
become more green and sustainable, companies are also trying to
educate and convince its customers to buy its green products. As
an external pressure, NGOs can run boycotts or adverse publicity
campaigns designed to shame the company into offering more
sustainable products.
Finally, the social issues factor focuses more on the existing
behavior and practices of companies in relation to the treatment
of their labor force, sourcing practices and environmental impact
on their communities. Green, sustainable operations is more
concerned with translating those aspirations into economically
sustainable business practices (Wang and Lin, 2007).
5.2. Framework for sustainable supply chain metrics

Elkington (1997) argued that due to the advance of information technology companies can no longer keep their practices
secret from stakeholders. They have to report on their sustainability practices to inform them and to serve as a benchmark
against competitors. It is also important that these reports include
Fig. 8. Factors in sustainable supply chain.
76
measures or indicators that make the companys performance

veriable by external agencies and global standards. In achieving
such transparency in reporting and measuring, Elkington stressed
the importance of forming partnerships, not only with supply
chain partners, but also with government and non-governmental
organizations. In this section we will report on our ndings in the
literature, outline the major hurdles in developing sustainable
supply chain metrics and propose a framework for such a metric.
5.2.1. Sustainable supply chain management metrics literature
Despite its importance, there is a scarcity of research on this
subject. This is expected as the research on supply chain metrics in
general is scarce (Gunasekaran et al., 2004). Even in related supply
chain metrics studies there is no discussion of sustainability indicators. For example, in a recent review by Gunasekaran and Kobu
(2007) there are no sustainability related measures in the 27 major
performance measures that they have identied in the literature.
Hervani et al. (2005) propose the use of ISO 14032 as a basis
for green supply chain performance management system (GSC/
PMS). However, it is important to stress here that the ISO guidelines are developed for individual organizations. Although
Hervani et al. (2005) list some of the complexities of designing
a GSC/PMS, they do not give solutions for how to overcome them.
Zhu and Sarkis (2004) look at the merit of employing green
supply chain practices on economic and environmental performance in the Chinese manufacturing industry. Clemens (2006)
investigates a similar question but for small rms. They nd a
positive relationship between nancial and green performance.
Furthermore, it appears that this correlation is strengthened in
the presence of government incentives. Vachon and Klassen
(2008) look at how environmental collaboration impacts manufacturing performance. They nd that while upstream collaboration has clear benets, the case is not as evident from customerbased collaboration. Vachon and Mao (2008) link supply chain
strength, at a country level, to its environmental and social
sustainability performances. Sarkis (2006) nds that early adoption of environmental and risk management practices may not
result in a positive impact on a companys environmental performance. Searcy et al. (2007) present a case study of sustainable
performance indicators for an electric utility company. They focus
on environmental and social issues.
It is worth noting that no study has comprehensively
addressed the three dimensions of sustainability (economy,
society and environment). Table 2 shows what dimension each
study has focused on.
In Table 3 we show the performance measures used in the
studies. It is important to note that the above measures were not
used or designed to be used in a supply chain context; the
measures do not span across partners in the supply chain.
Furthermore, some studies where specic to limited industries
(e.g., Scrap yards in steel industry in Clemens (2006), metal
Table 2
Focus of papers on sustainable supply chain metrics.
Paper
Clemens (Clemens 2006)

Hervani et al. (2005)
Sarkis (2006)
Searcy et al. (2007)
Vachon and Klassen (2008)
Vachon and Mao (2008)
Zhu and Sarkis (2004)
nishing in Sarkis (2006), utility in Searcy et al. (2007)). In

addition there is no consistency in the number of measures used:
it ranges from as low as three to as high as 98.
5.2.2. Hurdles for the development of reliable metrics
The research on performance measures in supply chains
acknowledges the difculty of developing reliable performance
measures. Some of these difculties are inherent to the nature of
supply chain management. We list nine important challenges:
1. Although there is no shortage of environmental indicators,
there is a difculty in deciding on which ones to use, when and
how: Hervani et al. (2005).
2. Different supply chain players have to agree on which metrics
to use and with which data.Thus agreements and negotiations
are sometimes necessary: Hervani et al. (2005).
3. Incompatibility between classical production measures, which
are designed for intra-organizational management, and supply
chain measures that should have an inter-organizational
scope: Lehtinen and Ahola (2010).
4. Lack of an oversight agency that controls the whole supply
chain. While some environmental measures are linked to clear
governmental regulations, many economic and social measures are not and it is usually hard to enforce compliance
throughout the supply chain.
5. Lack of trust in the relationship and fear that data condentiality may be compromised.
6. Difculties in aligning strategies throughout the supply chain.
One prerequisite of classical performance measures is that
they serve to achieve a t between a rms competitive
strategy and its operational strategy (see, e.g., Bendoly et al.,
2007). The difculty with supply chains is that several rms in
the same supply chain may have different, and potentially
conicting, strategies.
7. Difculties in coordination of competencies. Performance
measures are designed to capitalize on a rms internal
competencies and use them to strengthen its external competencies (see, e.g., Bendoly et al., 2007). The challenge within a
supply chain context is that there could be redundancy in
competencies and that the sum of the different parties
competencies may not be equal to the whole.
8. Difculty in streamlining the different types of supply chain
parties. There are different management theories for rms
strategies such as defenders, prospectors and analyzers or caretakers, innovators, and marketers (see Bendoly et al., 2007 and
references therein). Performance management theory recommends that rms select their measures according to their types
(Bendoly et al., 2007). However, in supply chain contexts we may
have several rms with different types.
9. Dynamic nature of supply chains. Not only are performance
measures likely to change with times, a supply chain party
(e.g., a supplier) is likely to play different roles in different
supply chains. For example, a supplier may supply a critical
component to one manufacturer in one supply chain and be a
dual supply source for another manufacturer in a different
supply chain.
Dimension
Economy
Environment
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Society
x
x
5.2.3. Framework for sustainable supply chain metrics

Keeping in mind the above challenges and taking into account
the theory of performance measures design (e.g., see Bendoly
et al., 2007) we propose to use composite indicators to create
reliable performance measures for sustainable supply chains.
Composite indicators (CIs) have been used successfully to summarize complex and multi-dimensional indicators. Saisana
77
Table 3
Sustainable performance measures used in the literature.
Paper
Measures
Clemens (2006)
Hervani et al. (2005)
Environmental policy, Investment in Environmental responsiveness, Environmental consciousness

Fugitive non-point air emissions, stack or point air emissions, discharges to receiving streams and water bodies, underground injection on-site,
releases to land on-site, discharges to publicly owned treatment works, other off-site transfers, on-site and off-site energy recovery, on-site
and off-site recycling, on-site or off-site treatment, non-production releases, source reduction activities, spill and leak prevention, inventory
control, raw material modication, process modications, cleaning and decreasing, surface preparation and nishing, product modications,
pollution prevention opportunity audits, materials balances audits, employee and participative management, publicly available missions and
values statement(s), management systems pertaining to social and environmental performance, magnitude and nature of penalties for noncompliance, number, volume, and nature of accidental or non-routine releases to land, air, and water, costs associated with environmental
compliance, environmental liabilities under applicable laws and regulations, site remediation costs under applicable laws and regulations,
major awards received, total energy use, total electricity use, total fuel use, other energy use, total materials use other than fuel, total water
use, habitat improvements and damages due to enterprise operations, quantity of non-product output returned to process or market by
recycling or reuse, major environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with the life cycle of products and services, formal, written
commitments requiring an evaluation of life cycle impacts, programs or procedures to prevent or minimize potentially adverse impacts of
products and services, procedures to assist product and service designers to create products or services with reduced adverse life cycle impact
Water consumption, energy usage, organics emitted, and sludge emitted by the facility
Level of trust by stakeholder category, openness to stakeholder participation, effectiveness of engagement process, meeting expectations,
aboriginal satisfaction with the decision making process, no. of public consultation opportunities, no. of attendees to public consultations,
public awareness of consultation opportunities, percent of past commitments fully met, average response time to requests for publicly
available information, adequacy of reporting and information provided to the public, resources devoted to aboriginal participation in the
consultation process, status as an employer of choice, staff preparedness to represent the company in public, percent of workers who report
complete job satisfaction, effectiveness of capturing staff feedback, average employee turnover by classication, effectiveness of staff training
programs, effectiveness of staff training programs, perceived clarity of expectations, perceived opportunity for advancement, perceived ability
to inuence decisions, perceived access to necessary resources, staff sense of team, internal and external salary ratios, percent of employee
development plans completed, non-entry level positions lled with external candidates, investment in staff education and training, public
attitude factor, investment in community outreach, charity and education, percent of electromagnetic eld information requests promptly
followed up on, in-kind contributions to community and other local programs, participation in voluntary programs, existence of cultural
awareness training for employees, perceived risk of electromagnetic eld to humans and livestock, number of staff hours directed to
electromagnetic eld education and awareness initiatives, annual change in right of way by type, transmission intensity, % right of way under
secondary land use, no. of requests for adjustments to development plans, Hectares of right of way (ROW) required, loss of alternate land use
by type, total electricity transmitted, % lines on protected environmental or cultural areas, no. of complaints related to dust, noise, and visual,
Average compensation paid, contribution to fragmentation of the landscape, net change in forest cover per, percent of lines for which
vulnerable, threatened, or endangered species have been identied and action has been taken, existence of an up-to-date biodiversity policy,
change in affected media due to line installation, hectares of forest cover cleared per year, hectares of trees planted per year, hectares of
critical habitat affected by operations, effect on aquatic organisms, percent of lines where mitigation of edge effect is pursued, properties of
area media prior to line installation, properties of area media after line installation, cost of reducing vegetation in critical zone vs. cost of
outages, relationship between outages and dollars spent, cost of increasing intensity of vegetation management, percent of right of way with
vegetation in critical zone, minutes of system outages caused by vegetation, dollars spent on vegetation management per year, cost per
hectare managed by practice, percent of hectares managed by practice, cycle time by method of vegetation management, percent of lines with
up-to-date vegetation management, existing reliability vs. cost of upgrading plans, existing efciency vs. cost of upgrading, megawatts
transferred per value of xed assets, transmission line efciency, average system outage frequency, average system outage time, waste poles,
line, and other hardware recycled or reused, cost per kilometer of line, number of regulatory violations by type, total kilometers of line by
voltage, export/import ratio and capability, percent of time that the system has 100% transfer capability, percent of time capable of meeting
demand, percent of in-service dates met, Average lifetime of infrastructure, Variance in expenditures from budget, Investment in R&D by type,
reportable and non-reportable spills including unintended releases, percent of wood used that is treated, percent of wood used that is treated,
workforce representative of provincial demographics, classication of employees (full-time, part time, temporary), ratio of lowest wage to
provincial minimum, net employment creation, percent of contracts with provincial suppliers, stakeholder satisfaction with programs to
mitigate effects of transmission line installation, benets shared with affected communities, percent of employment sourced from local
communities, percent of purchase orders placed with aboriginal companies, percent of suppliers with an up-to-date sustainable development
policy
Solid waste disposal, air emissions, water emissions
Sarkis (2006)
Searcy et al. (2007)
Vachon and Klassen

(2008)
Vachon and Mao
(2008)
Zhu and Sarkis (2004)
Waste recycling rate, energy efciency, greenhouse gas emissions, environmental innovation
Reduction of air emission, reduction of waste water, reduction of solid wastes, decrease of consumption for hazardous/harmful/toxic
materials, decrease of frequency for environmental accidents, improve a enterprises environmental situation, increase of investment, increase
of operational cost, increase of training cost, increase of costs for purchasing environmentally friendly materials, decrease of cost for materials
purchasing, decrease of cost for energy consumption, decrease of fee for waste treatment, decrease of fee for waste discharge, decrease of ne
for environmental accidents
and Tarantola (2002) give an extensive review of the different

methodologies used to develop CIs and report on 24 practical
implementations.
Fig. 9 shows the proposed framework. Using Elkingtons TBLs
principle, each supply chain partner (supplier, manufacturer,
distributor, retailer or customer) collects measures on each of
the three dimensions: economy, environment and society. The
choice of these measures as to align with each partners own
strategic goals. At this stage a performance measure framework
such that proposed by Gunasekaran et al. (2004) would be useful
to decide on which measures to choose. Each partner then
produce their own internally calculated sub-indicator. These
sub-indicators are then aggregated to form a supply chain

composite indicator.
To address the difculties outlined in points 19 in the
previous section, guidelines are provided to each partner so that
their sub-indicators are reliable, but still satisfy their privacy
needs as the way a sub-indicator is calculated can hide the
peculiarities of the different measures within a company. The
overall composite indicator should be designed in a way that it
encourages trust and transparency between the different supply
chain partners. We purposely left open the details of the different
measures and sub-indicators that can be used as these depend on
the nature of operations and strategies for each partner. Some of
78
the authors are currently working on a more detailed model that

will also be tested empirically.
6. Case study
In this section we present a case study to illustrate the process
that companies have to go through in practice to develop supply
chain sustainability metrics. It is worth mentioning that the
company team of experts has noted the need for the development
of composite indicators in this eld.
The case company is a major Canadian electric utility. It is a
Provincial Crown corporation that operates in a regulated energy
market. The case company provides generation, transmission, and
distribution services to nearly 750,000 customers in its home
province. It also exports electricity to over 50 electric utilities
throughout Canada and the United States. The case company has a
well-established sustainable development program. A sustainable
development policy was rst developed in the early 1990s. The
policy is accompanied by a set of 13 sustainable development
principles. However, while the case company has implemented a
number of initiatives in support of its sustainable development
policy and principles, it has struggled to incorporate sustainable
development considerations into its key decision-making processes.
To help address this issue, the case company decided to develop
a system of sustainability indicators linked to its core management
infrastructure. The primary factor inuencing the decision to
develop the indicators was an increasing expectation on the part
of the companys major stakeholders, including customers and
government that the company would explicitly consider environmental and social issues as a part of its decision-making process.
This is consistent with the market forces, policy, and social factors
Economic
Environment
Society
Measures
Measures
Measures
sub-indicators
Partners
sub-indicators
Supplier
Manufacturer
Distributor
Retailer
Customer
Fig. 9. Framework for sustainable supply chain metrics.
CI
discussed earlier in the paper. To provide a manageable pilot test,

the scope of the initiative was initially limited to the companys
major high-voltage (115 kV and above) transmission system.
The indicators were developed through an iterative process consisting of a needs assessment, detailed process planning, development
of draft indicators, renement of the indicators, and integration of
the indicators with existing company infrastructure. A review of
the process and results was also conducted at the conclusion of the
process. Every stage in the process involved extensive consultation
with experts from both inside and outside of the case company. A
total of 16 internal experts and 10 external experts were consulted
throughout the process. Ultimately, a system of indicators was
developed to address the case companys key sustainability themes,
including stakeholder relationships, land use practices, and governance issues. Although the focus of the initiative was not explicitly on
suppliers and the supply chain, these issues were considered as a
part of the process.
Several indicators focused on supply chain issues were incorporated into the companys overall system of sustainability
indicators. The indicators that directly addressed supply chain
issues are listed in Table 4. As indicated in Table 4, four indicators
directly addressed supply chain issues. All of the indicators were
based on existing data collected by the case company. The
indicator on Aboriginal suppliers is in recognition of the importance of that stakeholder group in the Canadian energy industry.
Table 4 highlights that all of the selected indicators were
explicitly linked to goals. The goal of three of the indicators was
to increase the value of the measure, while the goal of the other
was to maintain a range identied by the case company. It is
important to note that several other indicators were included in
the overall system that indirectly addressed supply chain issues,
including percent of wood used that is treated, number of
regulatory violations by type, and waste poles, line, and other
hardware recycled or reused. The complete system of indicators
is available in Searcy et al. (2007). Moreover, it is important to
note that other indicators were suggested by the participating
experts throughout the indicator development process that were
not reected in the nal system. Indicators relevant to supply
chain management in this regard included supplier lead-time by
infrastructure type, participation in voluntary or above compliance level programs, and number of warnings issued. It is
important to note that the indicators ultimately selected
addressed several of the relevant functions suggested in the
sustainable supply chain management framework discussed in
Section 5.1. Sourcing issues were of particular interest to the case
utility. For example, the indicators percent of suppliers with an
up-to-date sustainable development policy, percent of contracts
with Provincial suppliers, and percent of purchase orders placed
with Aboriginal companies all addressed sourcing issues. The
level of stakeholder trust indicator addressed customer issues.
Table 4
Supply chain indicators at the electric utility case company.
Indicator
Signicance
Measurement
Goal
Percent of suppliers with an up-to-date

sustainable development policy
Although the existence of a policy does not necessarily indicate more sustainable
development, it does indicate that the company has given some thought to
the issue. This indicator is a starting point in developing a more robust measure
The company seeks to utilize local suppliers wherever practical
Percent of total
Increase
Percent of total
Increase
Percent of contracts with Provincial

suppliers
Percent of purchase orders placed with
Aboriginal companies
Level of stake-holder trust by category
The company seeks to strengthen relationships with aboriginal peoples and to

support their businesses where practical
Trust is one of the most important factors in relationships with interested stake-holders
Percent of total
Maintain
target
range
Likert scale (15) Increase
from survey
Related indicators, such as waste poles, line, and other hardware

recycled or reused addressed other aspects of the framework.
Moreover, the framework provides insight into possible extensions of the set of indicators in the future. For example, although
they were not included in the initial version of the indicators,
other indicators such as supplier lead-time by infrastructure
type would be consistent with other relevant functions with the
supply chain.
Building on the discussion above, one of the key points emphasized in the process of developing the indicators was that they
would evolve over time. For example, the experts recognized that an
indicator such as percentage of suppliers with an up-to-date
sustainable development policy would likely be replaced by a more
sophisticated indicator in the future. While the experts recognized the
challenges in developing broadly applicable indicators for supply chain
management, a composite indicator that addresses key supplier factors
could therefore be an area of future work. The system of indicators
developed by the case company reects the fact that it is at different
stages of development for different issues. Since the case company
was in the early stages of evaluating the sustainability of its supply
chain, the experts felt it did not make sense to develop indicators
that were overly prescriptive at this time. Time would be needed to
agree with the companys suppliers on more sophisticated indicators, align strategies throughout the supply chain, and to resolve
difculties in streamlining the different types of supply chain
parties. Indicators would also need to be developed that accommodate the dynamic nature of supply chains. These points are all
consistent with the hurdles for the development of reliable metrics
discussed earlier.
The indicators developed by the case company closely align
with the most commonly reported indicators on supply chain
management in Canada. A review of 100 Canadian corporate
sustainability reports (published as of July 1, 2010) shows that
the most commonly reported supply chain indicator was policy,
practices, and proportion of spending on locally based suppliers
(Morali and Searcy, 2011). This indicator was reported by 25 of
the 100 companies. No other indicator focused on the supply
chain was reported by more than 5 of the Canadian companies
sampled. The indicators developed by the case company are also
consistent with the GRI indicators focusing on supplier issues,
namely policy, practices, and proportion of spending on locally
based suppliers at signicant locations of operation and percentage of signicant suppliers and contractors that have undergone screening on human rights and actions taken (GRI, 2006).
The experience at the case company demonstrates some of the
challenges and opportunities in developing supply chain-focused
sustainability indicators. The study helps illustrate that there is a
tradeoff between selecting technically sophisticated indicators
and choosing indicators that can be reasonably implemented by
the company at that time (Searcy et al., 2007). Different indicators
will be needed by different companies and the indicators ultimately selected must reect the unique needs of the company
that will use them. Recognizing their inexperience in measuring
sustainability in the supply chain, the experts at the case
company felt it was in the companys best interest to start with
straightforward indicators that provide insight into some of the
companys key priority areas. Given the complexity of measuring
sustainability in the supply chain, it may be appropriate for
companies to start with fairly top-level indicators and extend
them over time. In any case, the study shows that there is a strong
demand for indicators in this area. While the indicators ultimately
selected by the experts were heavily debated, there was a
consensus on the need to address supply related issues in the
overall system of indicators. However, the experience at the case
company also illustrates the difculty in developing innovative
indicators tailored to the unique needs of the organization. There
79
is a need for further case studies that shed light on the indicators
companies use to measure the success of their sustainable supply
chain management initiatives.
7. Conclusions and suggestions for further research

We have reviewed research on sustainable supply chain
management with a focus on studies that were published in the
last decade. After providing a denition for sustainable supply
chain management we presented our literature survey results.
Based on these results we have developed an original framework
for sustainable supply chain management. Recognizing the
importance of reliable performance measures for the maintenance of sustainable supply chain practices we have also included
a case study describing the experience of a utility company in
setting performance indicators. This case showed that there is a
strong demand in industry for such indicators and that more
complex indicators are required. Based on these ndings we also
developed a framework for sustainable supply chain metrics. As
shown in Fig. 2 there is an increasing interest in studying
sustainable supply chains. Below we outline a research agenda
based on our ndings in the literature and experience with the
case study company:
Industry specic research: we feel that more attention should

be given to industry-specic research on sustainable supply
chain management. For example, although in practice the ICT
industry has been judged to be successful in greening their
supply chains, they havent been well studied in the literature.
As per Table 3 it is also clear that different performance
measurement systems need to be developed for different
industries. Searcy et al. (2007) and Hassini and Surti (2011)
provide example studies in the utilities and transportation/
logistics sectors, respectively.
Pricing: the operations management literature is currently

thriving with research at the interface of marketing and
operations that would usually incorporate pricing as an
important decision making lever (e.g., see recent review by
Tang, 2010). However, as shown in Fig. 4 we found only one
paper that addresses the pricing issue in a sustainable supply
chain context. As we stressed in our framework for sustainable
supply chains, we believe it is important that, pricing, as part
of the value proposition to the customer, be more strongly
emphasized.
Inventory Management: As shown in Fig. 4 we did not nd

any study that explicitly addressed inventory management
within a sustainable supply chain. If examined from the TBL
principle, we nd that the traditional inventory models focus
only the economic aspect. For example, if it is cheap to dispose
leftover stock, a news vendor model would recommend stocking more. The US life-cycle inventory database (described in
Section 4.5 can aid in empirical research.
Firm Size: While it is acknowledged that large rms have an

advantage for adopting sustainable practices more than SMEs
and that SMEs adoption is necessary in the long run, reviewed
studies found that the rate of return on early adoption is not
encouraging. More research is thus needed on how SMEs and
large rms should approach investment in and adoption of
sustainable practices.
Sustainable Supply Chain Metrics: As we outline in Section

5.2.2, the existing performance management theory has
several principles that makes it incompatible for implementation in a supply chain context. We suggested the use of
80
composite indicators. More empirical research is required to

validate the proposed framework. In addition more theoretical
research is required to develop principles that take into
account the intricacies of supply chain structures that distinguishes them from the management of individual rms.
Acknowledgment The authors would like to thank the

anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments that helped
improve the presentation and content of the paper. We also
would like to acknowledge the nancial support from the Natural
Science and Engineering Research Council.
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Int. J.

Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Int. J. Production Economics

A literature review and a case study of sustainable supply chains with

DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

sustainable supply chains and the other for the development of

2. Objectives and methodology

E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

International Journal of Production Research

Fig. 1. Distribution of reviewed papers by journal.

Publications in Decision Science Journals

Decision Science Publications

Fig. 2. Distribution of reviewed and other relevant papers by publication year.

Next, we restricted the articles by subject area, requiring that they be

allow us to cover all the important issues related to sustainable

3. Denition of sustainable supply chain management

E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

By social well-being, as used in the above denition, we mean

4. Review results and classications

4.1. Related reviews

4.2. Classication by industry sector

4.3. Firm size and sustainability

E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

Supply Chain Drivers

Research Method for Decision Science Journals

Fig. 4. Distribution of reviewed papers by supply chain driver.

Given our focus on decision sciences publications, it is not

Supply Chain Entity

Whole enterprise Manufacturer

Fig. 5. Distribution of reviewed papers by supply chain partner.

information driver to set the technology infrastructure as a sign of

4.6. Supply chain partner

E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

We see that the majority of papers focus on the manufacturer.

5. Frameworks for sustainable supply chain management and

Fig. 6. Framework for sustainable supply chains.

E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

Sustainable practices and processes

Fair Labour Practices

Customers and product use

Use of green energy

Reuse, Recycle, Return

Can the product be reused in

Can the product be

Fig. 7. Issues for sustainable supply chain management.

(Zarovski, 2003, p. 206). Furthermore, Bullfrogpower explicitly

E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

The above functions major issues are summarized in Fig. 7. As

5.1.2. Major factors for the adoption of sustainable supply chain

5.2. Framework for sustainable supply chain metrics

Fig. 8. Factors in sustainable supply chain.

E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

measures or indicators that make the companys performance

Clemens (Clemens 2006)

nishing in Sarkis (2006), utility in Searcy et al. (2007)). In

5.2.3. Framework for sustainable supply chain metrics

E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

Environmental policy, Investment in Environmental responsiveness, Environmental consciousness

Vachon and Klassen

and Tarantola (2002) give an extensive review of the different

sub-indicators are then aggregated to form a supply chain

E. Hassini et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 140 (2012) 6982

Industry specic research: we feel that more attention should

Pricing: the operations management literature is currently

Inventory Management: As shown in Fig. 4 we did not nd

Firm Size: While it is acknowledged that large rms have an

Sustainable Supply Chain Metrics: As we outline in Section