Supply Chain Management

Supply Chain Strategy and Evaluation

Supply Chain Strategy and Evaluation

First Report Professor Martin Charter, Aleksandra Kielkiewicz-Young, Alex Young, Andrew Hughes The Centre for Sustainable Design January 2001

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© The SIGMA Project - 2001

Supply Chain Strategy and Evaluation

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all the organisations and people who freely gave their time to help with this research.

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© The SIGMA Project - 2001

Supply Chain Strategy and Evaluation

Executive Summary

Key findings This research investigated the economic, social and environmental impacts in supply chain management (SCM), and how different organisations are addressing the issues of sustainable development. The main findings of the research were: ∑ There is a lack of clarity in the definitions and scope of the terminology used in SCM and sustainable SCM. Definitions of ‘supply chain’, ‘demand chain’ and ‘value chain’ are sometimes used interchangeably, although there are differences. Similarly, ‘logistics’ is often substituted for ‘SCM ’. The term ‘sustainable supply chain management’ (SSCM) is not in common usage and there is considerable lack of clarity due to misunderstandings on the meaning and scope of the term ‘sustainable’. Most organisations have concentrated their SCM efforts on environmental issues e.g. ‘environmental SCM ’, ‘supply chain environmental management’ or ‘green procurement’. These definitions depend on the scope of the organisation’s understanding of the term ‘supply chain’. The most common tools for SSCM have been environmentally based, especially where the environmental drivers have been linked to business risk. Social and ethical management strategies have appeared most commonly in the retail sector, where customers consist of the general public and social and ethical issues are more salient due to the physical association of the product with the supply source. Key factors that have influenced successful SSCM have been...