1. Green supply chains and environmental benchmarking – implications for emerging economies
Green supply chain management (GSCM) has been acknowledged as an important business strategy to achieve economic objectives by reducing environmental risks of the supply chain (SC) processes and operations. Conceptually, GSCM spans over the intersecting concepts of environmental management and supply chain management (SCM), and is principally focussed on minimising environmental impacts while maintaining a balance of SC performance with the environmental measures (Sarkis, 2012). Globally, organisations are striving hard to increase the sustainability of their operations, and thus, putting great efforts and resources into the greening of their SC operations. However, there have been mixed responses from practitioners in developing countries. Scholars have previously reported positive impacts of GSCM adoption in emerging economies. However, the organisations have been struggled in adopting GSCM in their operations (Ahmed et al., 2018). The concept of GSCM is relatively unexplored in emerging economies as business organisations lacks in its implementation (Gandhi et al., 2016). In this sense, there is a great need to understand the implications and application of GSCM from an operational context. Further, managers and practitioners are also seeking to benchmark the GSCM practices for improving their green performance. The special issue (SI) of Management of Environmental Quality, Green Supply Chains and Environmental Benchmarking – Implications for Emerging Economies, explores this broad view of GSCM specifically from an emerging economy perspective. Relevant contributions with conceptual/empirical/case studies/modelling-based approaches were received, which are briefed in the next section.
2. The contributions of SI
This SI has received an excellent response from scholars across the world; however, owing to the thematic and space restrictions, 17 articles were accepted after a thorough review process. The contributions made by accepted 17 research articles are thematically summarised in Table 1 as follows:
3. Final takeaway
The SI attracted research articles from a broad perspective on GSCM such as closed-loop SC, reverse logistics, circular SC, recycling, humanitarian operations, drivers, barriers and enablers of GSCM. From a methodological perspective, varied qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used, such as MCDM techniques like ISM, AHP, BWM; regression and empirical analysis, MILP and multi-objective optimisation. The accepted studies were not only focussed on environmental aspects but also focussed on economic as well as social perspectives. From a sector specific context, the accepted papers studied varied industries such as chemical, construction, energy, logistics, etc. in terms of GSCM adoption. Including studies from such diverse industries, this SI would help in adoption GSCM in emerging economies to achieve the 12 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for responsible consumption and production. Future research in GSCM in context of emerging economies may focus on the following aspects:
Policy enablers to boost the adoption of GSCM in emerging economies.
Study economic incentives for adopting GSCM in developing economies.
Impact of disruptive technologies on green performance.
Investigate green performance through life cycle assessment of products and services
Examine GSCM adoption during disruptions and or crisis.
Accountability and reporting in GSCM adoption.
