Green Supply Chain: How do Carbon Management and Sustainable Development Create Competitive Advantage for the Supply Chain?
Special issue call for papers from Supply Chain Management
Closing date 31 December 2009
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Special Issue on
Green Supply Chain: How do Carbon Management and Sustainable Development Create Competitive Advantage for the Supply Chain?
Guest Editors:
Dr. Federica Cucchiella
Department of Electric Engineering and Information, Faculty of Engineering, University of L’Aquila, Italy.
federicacucchiella@ing.univaq.it
Professor Lenny Koh
Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) Research Group, Management School,
The University of Sheffield, UK.
S.C.L.Koh@sheffield.ac.uk
Sustainability science has been a hot, emerging, complex and multi-disciplinary topic for quite a few years now in the supply chain research sphere. The economic, social and environmental aspects should be taken into consideration when balancing and analyzing the impact of carbon management and sustainable development on supply chain. Organizations in todays and futures society are increasingly expected to know that their suppliers are as mindful of their environmental and social responsibilities as they are themselves, in other words they are expected to look after the sustainability of their entire supply chain.
In the transition process towards a greener supply chain, organizations reviewing their business processes should look beyond their factory walls. Organizations should find suppliers who have minimal environmental impact without sacrificing the quality of their product or significantly raising costs. By purchasing products from green suppliers, organizations can then begin their restructuring towards a green supply chain from the upstream. On the downstream, organizations should look at their return process. However, many organizations have not developed a successful refurbishment program for their products that have been returned or exchanged. By offering refurbished products, organizations can increase purchasing options to their customers and widen their customer base, whilst improving the environmental impact of their products.
There are many ways in which organizations can move towards a green supply chain; however it is important to realize that it is difficult to achieve results without strong focused leadership. Green supply chain strategy makes sense from an overall business perspective, but the vast majority of organizations are in early stages of strategy development. While customer and the end consumer are increasingly expecting organizations to be green, they may not necessarily be willing to pay the extra costs, especially given the current economy.
Although green supply chain management research has started to heat up, there have been few multi-disciplinary, comprehensive and holistic studies about it. The existing studies vary in detail. There are a few papers that collect studies, categorize them and conclude the trend of research. There are substantial number of research related to sustainability, including integrating environmental management and supply chain strategies, green-product design, and closed-loop supply chains. However the competitive advantages deriving from a green supply chain implementation are not clear for many organizations, in such sense, there are several aspects that have to be analyzed, and indeed implemented at end-to-end supply chain. This is an immensely complex supply chain problem and will require multi-year initiatives as well as technology-enabled analytical analysis and tracking tools.
This Special Issue looks for contributions (case studies, models, theory) in green supply chain management concerning but not limited to:
• Measuring the Value of Carbon Footprint and Environmental Program
• Cost efficiency benefits of a supply chain sustainability program in an economic downturn
• Linking supply chain sustainability projects to the financial aspects
• How a standard accounting approach incorporates carbon and energy costs, opportunity costs, risks of not taking action, various intangibles including customer expectation and positive impact on brand value
• Justifying projects on green supply chain that do not deliver immediate payback
• Evaluating the relevance of sustainability in an economic downturn
• Understanding the future for funding environmental projects
• Analyzing the criteria for loans and incentives for environmental initiatives
• Developing and implementing a Total Supply Chain Sustainability
• What defines Total Supply Chain Sustainability and why is it necessary?
• How to assess opportunities in your end-to-end supply chain upstream and downstream
• Developing carbon management through the supply chain
• Global service reverse logistic
• Green service logistics management
• Ethics and social responsibility in global service supply chain
• Global service supply chain simulations
Articles containing highly innovative and high quality conceptual, analytical models, empirical and case studies addressing the above related issues are welcome. Articles must be multi-disciplinary and extend beyond the dyad.
Manuscripts must be submitted no later than 31 December 2009 and conform to Supply Chain Management: An International Journal requirements. (http://info.emeraldinsight.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?PHPSESSID=mg8efcil6ki9u31kbi5g7b0bn5&id=scm)
The manuscripts will be reviewed according to the journal review procedures.
Please submit your manuscript to the journal’s on-line manuscript central http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/scm and send a copy of your manuscript by email as an attachment to the guest editors:
Dr. Federica Cucchiella
Department of Electric Engineering and Information,
Faculty of Engineering, University of L’Aquila,
Monteluco di Roio,
67040 L’Aquila,
Italy.
federica.cucchiella@univaq.it
Professor SC Lenny Koh
Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) Research Group
Management School
The University of Sheffield
9 Mappin Street
Sheffield S1 4DT
UK
S.C.L.Koh@sheffield.ac.uk