Supply Chain Sustainability Case Study

In order for IKEA to achieve design and sustainability objectives, they follow and balance four dimensions of design. The four different dimensions followed are form, function, quality, sustainability, and low price (Rafiq Elmansy, 2014). IKEA has already made changes by using cotton and water from sources that can be renewed. IKEA did this while posting strong sales figures. In 2014, its sales increased 5.9 percent from 2013 to $32.1 billion (Pantsios, 2015).

Kohl’s Department Stores has expanded its commitment to supply chain sustainability in 2012 to include analysis of 50 private brand vendors, as well as the company’s top 325 national brand vendors, which represents approximately 90 percent of the company’s merchandise spend. The company also surveyed 38 non-merchandise business partners in the areas of transportation and consumables, according to its newly released 2012 corporate social responsibility report. Kohl’s leverages these scores in key areas of sustainability to foster consistent dialogue and education and to help vendors establish their own programs and commitments.

Cooperated with partners and leaders in the field of supply chains and transport, the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Logistics and Transportation started to conduct research on the supply chain. The report “Beyond Supply Chains Empowering Responsible Value Chains” analyses the impact that supply chain practices has brought to business, society and environment, and explores the issue how shared value can be made through better supply chain decisions. The report identifies “a set of 31 proven supply chain practices which provide companies with a blueprint of where they can gain both commercial and socio-environmental advantage (both environment and local economic development)—driving a triple advantage” (). In addition, the report “provides a framework for evaluating the potential value at stake behind each of these practices, and an implementation framework for

However, in Global Supply Chain Management, there is also a need to protect the environment, although for more selfish reasons. Businesses need to be environmentally friendly because people around the world are catching onto the fad of “going green” and want products and companies that boast that. By having sustainable product development and sustainable transportation methods, business are both protecting the environment and attracting more consumers. This is an interesting point because one would not think that a book about best business practices would attract a business towards being more environmentally friendly, but the book is clear that that is what is

Strategies within a business environment are crucial for the current and future success of the company. Understanding the processes involved help create the proper operations needed to be successful within a industry. I have chosen the manufacturing and retail industry mainly surrounding Walmart’s current sustainability efforts. According to Collier and Evens (2015), “Sustainability refers to an organizations ability to strategically address current business needs and successfully develop a long-term strategy that embraces opportunities and manages risk for all products, systems, supply chains and processes to preserve resources for future generations”. Sustainability is compiled of three distinct categories Environmental, Social and Economic sustainability.

Recent years have brought several changes in business practices, technologies, increase of demands, and environmental trends. For businesses these changes represent vast challenges especially for supply chain and purchasing managers, demanding special attention to key issues related to contract management practices, lean supply chains, ethics and laws, purchasing of services, performance measurement and new trends in the field. Below is a summary identifying six purchasing and supply chain management key issues, supply chain and purchasing managers are required to identify future and actual key issues within these elements and how to manage it effectively in order to stay competitive and maintain the good performance of the company.

Unfortunately, a review of the literature will show that the term sustainability has been inconsistently defined and applied in the extant research. This lack of an explicit consideration of economic criteria in current models and definitions of LSR and PSR, and the failure to consistently define sustainability and to apply the concepts of sustainability to the field of supply chain management, lead to the following research questions: RQ1. How can the term sustainability be defined and applied to supply chain management? RQ2. Is there a relationship between the integration of the concepts of sustainability and supply chain management, and long-term economic success? More specifically, do firms which engage in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices attain higher economic performance than firms which concentrate solely on economic performance? The answers to these research questions will help to clarify and begin to defuse the debate surrounding the relationship between environmental and social performance on one hand, and economic performance on the other. As noted by Hoffman and Bazerman (2005, p. 16):

(1) The supply chain managers should address the sustainability issues and should look at the entire supply

Abstract Consideration is given to the convergence of supply chains and sustainability. In doing so, the focus on environmental management and operations is moved from local optimization

Selecting suppliers by lowest price or nearest location which has been used since ancient times is not sufficient in today’s competitive environment. Nowadays selecting supplier has been an important decision that affects the organisation objectives. So researches have been conducted and case studies have been explored and investigated to reach the optimal approach to select a supplier that satisfies both customers and stakeholders and to achieve the organisation goals. Therefore, a multi-criteria decisionmaking process should be adapted to execute supplier selection operation properly. Resources selection needs to go through many steps to assist decision-makers to do their job elaborately. Sustainability of the supplier has

Arraigning main activities of supply chains; Borade, A, Bonsad SV (2008) exploring the domain of supply chain management. Environmental ethics for sustainable supply Beamon, Benita M., 2005. chain management. SC network configuration for Product Beamon, Benita M. and Farnandes recovery ,2004

Green supply chain management is a solid means for accomplishing the eco management points of an organisation, and is additionally a development of supply chain management. Although green supply chain management is an augmentation of the current supply chain management research from a micro perspective, it is additionally one part of eco management that considers nature from the macro perspective. Subsequently, it can be said that eco management unquestionably merits thought.

Green supply refers to the way in which innovations in supply chain management and industrial purchasing may be considered in the context of the environment. Environmental supply chain management consists of the purchasing function’s involvement in activities that include reduction, recycling, reuse and the substitution of materials. The practice of monitoring and improving environmental performance in the supply chain, integrating environmental thinking into a supply chain Management- including product design, material resourcing and selection, manufacturing processes, delivery of the final product to the consumer as well as end-of-life management of the product after its useful life.

Green supply chain management transpire as a new approach to attain environmental and financial benefits by diminishing impact and environmental risk at the same time . Now a day’s globalisation is increasing chances or offers for buyers. If the buyers will demand environment friendly product, the supplier will make more green products which will lead to environment protection. An organisation should focus on green supply chain as a social cause not for social cause or public image. Manufacturers should need to work with their raw material suppliers to provide them environmental friendly products, through this manufacturers can set a benchmark for the suppliers in process of supply chain management . The manufactured goods are further transported in ecofriendly manner, big companies are adopting techniques to maintain sustainability. The main aim of the organisations to perform green supply chain management is to fulfil the expectations of international markets to improve financial and environmental performance. Manufacturers are only involving those suppliers who are engaged in ecofriendly supply of raw material, and transportation which can meet the environmental regulations and standards.

manufacturers have to go beyond the boundary of their companies to implement green supply chain management (GSCM), that is, integrating environmental struggle into their SCM (Zhu et al., 2007). Leading firms in developed countries such as Japan are always proactive to environmental requirements, implementing inventive GSCM practices before and beyond regulatory requirements (Hosogai et al., 2009). For example, leading Japanese manufacturers implement GSCM at a upper level than Chinese manufacturers, and therefore bring more enactment improvement, especially for economic performance