Sustainable development goals and sustainable supply chains in the post global economy

eds., Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainable Supply Chains in the Post-global Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 7, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15066-2_1 Edito

Greening of Industry Networks Studies

Greening of Industry Networks Studies

Volume 7

Series editors

Diego A. Vazquez-Brust, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UKJoseph Sarkis, Worcester, MA, USA

Natalia Yakovleva • Regina Frei

Sudhir Rama Murthy

Editors

Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainable

Supply Chains in the

Post-global Economy

ISSN 2543-0246 ISSN 2543-0254 (electronic)

Greening of Industry Networks Studies

ISBN 978-3-030-15065-5 ISBN 978-3-030-15066-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15066-2

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

This work is subject to copyright All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors

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in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Natalia Yakovleva

Newcastle University Business School

Newcastle University

London, UK

Sudhir Rama Murthy

Sạd Business School

University of Oxford

Oxford, UK

Regina Frei University of Portsmouth Portsmouth, UK

Foreword

In September of 2015, world leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development This agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change by 2030 The importance of the SDGs should not be understated, as it is the first time that all developed and developing countries agree on a common and comprehensive set of sustainable development goals and targets

Corporations and their supply chains will be critical partners in helping to achieve these goals Building sustainable supply chains is one of the major ways to contribute to SDGs Particularly pertinent is SDG 12 with a theme of “responsible consumption and production.” The supply chain represents the distribution across the life cycle stages of goods and materials produced and consumed It is a major dimension on how organizations can improve sustainability performance

In recent decades, the world economy further internationalized and globalized These events resulted in growth in cross-border supply chains and transnational production and consumption systems, which contributed to integrated economies These forces also created political interdependencies facilitating collaboration between multiple stakeholders – including governments, civil society, communities, educational institutions, and industry – toward common goals in sustainability.However, there is little guidance by the SDGs on how these global goals can be translated into corporate policies and practices Almost two thirds of the targets are not quantified, they are aspirational, and when they refer to companies, they do it generically For instance, SDG 12 Target 6 is to “Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices.” The only specific business target in SDG 12 is to encourage companies to publish corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports

Companies will need to embark on a process of reflection and critical analysis to better understand social and political expectations and identify their own responsi-bilities to achieve these goals and – in particular – the impacts that their operations have on SDGs This embarkation is a nontrivial task Companies are struggling to define their role and develop a plan of action with a supply chain perspective for SDGs

Political shifts such as the Brexit and United States federal administration cies are feared to be heralding a period of deceleration in global economic integra-tion These policies represent a drastic geopolitical shift that may result in a post-global economy with greater isolationism, less collaboration, and more trade and foreign direct investment restrictions If so, these events will hinder efforts toward a global circular economy, which are key to SDGs The impacts of slowed down or even reversed globalization in supply chains have yet to be conceptualized The world economy may be heading toward more regionalization with these politi-cal changes which may be seen as opportunities for new supply chain partnerships.Against this background, the Greening of Industry Network (GIN) organized an international symposium at the Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2017. The workshop called for contributions challenging state-of-the-art knowledge and encouraged scholars to thrive on trans-disciplinarity that encompasses multiple fields of knowledge and stakeholders in understanding and building knowledge on environmental and social sustainability The editors of this book carefully selected contributions to provide an overview of issues and challenges from paradigmatical (e.g., degrowth) to theoretical, to practical viewpoints.

poli-The scope of the book is wide because the research on sustainability in supply chains is challenging and the analysis of its political aspects still in early develop-ment stages Sustainability in supply chains includes many dimensions that may be separable but are definitely systemic For that reason, the book presents studies including those with very specific lenses for research and investigation The interac-tions and relationships between chapters should be recognized to fully appreciate the complexities for addressing sustainability in supply chains issues It pools knowledge from various disciplines to help advance theory and practice on sustain-able supply chains, in a rapidly evolving global sociopolitical environment

University of Portsmouth Diego A. Vazquez-BrustPortsmouth, UK

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Worcester, MA, USA

Contents

1 Editorial Introduction: Achieving Sustainable Development

Goals Through Sustainable Supply Chains

in the Post- global Economy 1

Natalia Yakovleva, Regina Frei, and Sudhir Rama Murthy

Part I Critical Conceptual Approaches to Building

Sustainable Supply Chains for SDGs

2 Is Sustainable Supply Chain Management Sustainable? 13

Paul Nieuwenhuis, Anne Touboulic, and Lee Matthews

3 Supply Chain Management in a Degrowth Context:

The Potential Contribution of Stakeholders 31

Belén Payán-Sánchez, Miguel Pérez-Valls,

and José Antonio Plaza-Úbeda

4 The Four Freedoms-of-Movement and Distributed

Manufacturing 47

Sudhir Rama Murthy, Steve Evans, and Joseph Sarkis

5 The Spiral Economy: A Socially Progressive Circular

Economy Model? 67

Alison Ashby, Aline Marian Callegaro, Kemi Adeyeye,

and Maria Granados

6 Linking Sustainable Supply Chain Management

with the Sustainable Development Goals:

Indicators, Scales and Substantive Impacts 95

Anthony Alexander and Izabela Delabre

Part II Implementation of SDGs Through Sustainable Supply

Chain Management

7 Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment for the Environmental

Evaluation of Products in the Supply Chain 115

Dora Ruiz-Méndez and Leonor Patricia Güereca

8 Sustainable Development Goals: Corporate Social Responsibility?

A Critical Analysis of Interactions in the Construction

Industry Supply Chains Using Externalities Theory 133

Ankit Gaur and Diego A Vazquez-Brust

9 Sustainable Reverse Supply Chains for Retail Product

Returns 159

Regina Frei, Sally-Ann Krzyzaniak, and Lisa Jack

10 A Sustainable Supply Chain Perspective

in the Transition to Circular Cities 183

Carol Mungo and María-Laura Franco-García

11 A Strategic Evaluation Framework to Assess the Sustainability

Level of Industrial Parks in the Post-global Economy 205

Isabel Kreiner and María-Laura Franco-García

12 Potential of Carbon Footprint Reduction within Retailers:

Food Waste at Walmart in Mexico 225

Jorge Carlos Carpio-Aguilar, John Rincón-Moreno,

and María-Laura Franco-García

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

N Yakovleva et al (eds.), Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainable

Supply Chains in the Post-global Economy, Greening of Industry Networks

Studies 7, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15066-2_1

Editorial Introduction: Achieving

Sustainable Development Goals Through

Sustainable Supply Chains in the Post-

global Economy

Natalia Yakovleva, Regina Frei, and Sudhir Rama Murthy

Abstract Renewed global developmental priorities set by the United Nations

Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 provide a new impetus for businesses and organisations to improve sustainability practice However, applying the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to managerial practice remains a challenge There is a need for strategies, tools and models which would make the SDGs actionable by organisations This book examines the advancement of man-agement approaches towards embedding sustainability in supply chain relations from conceptual and practical aspects in both developed and emerging economies Despite the improvements in sustainable supply chain management theory and practice, global supply chains and production networks still face mounting environ-mental, social and economic problems and result in negative impacts worldwide Additionally, existing approaches in sustainable supply chain management are con-tested in the climate of post-global economy, where national policies and techno-logical development may prioritise regional and national economic interests, presenting a new challenge for supply chain integration The chapters in this book question how businesses and organisations can re-evaluate their practices and depart from a narrow view of mitigating negative social and environmental impacts towards actively contributing to sustainable development priorities in regional and organisa-tional contexts

Keywords Sustainable development goals · Sustainable supply chains · Business

sustainability · Supply chain management

1.1 Introduction

Sustainable Supply Chains (SSC) are more than just environmentally-friendly organisation of supply chain operations They need to be economically, ecologically and socially sustainable, and designed in a way to manage shareholder, customer and stakeholder requirements at various levels and scales (Morana 2013) Global supply chains and production networks are at the heart of modern economic devel-opment and pivotal for the functioning of global economy by playing an essential role in moving and delivering materials, goods, services and information (Dicken 2015) Most supply chains are managed by business organisations that are exposed

to a wide variety of parties from capital markets, governments, international isations, suppliers and communities worldwide (Brandenburg et  al 2014) The implementation of global sustainable development policies, expressed in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 and formulated by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), relies on operations and improvements of global supply chains

organ-The 17 SDGs define areas in which governments, civil society organisations and businesses can formulate policies and plans towards achieving the focused goals by

2030 (UN 2016) They highlight the most potent areas of global development that affect the worldwide population, and especially developing countries in terms of welfare, environmental degradation and climate change (SDG Fund 2015) The 169 objectives included in the framework present a broad scope for policy planning and implementation across a wide range of social, economic and environmental issues (Allen et al 2016) Whilst all SDGs have implications for supply chain operations

in terms of immediate and long-term effects at local and global scales, some SDGs are particularly relevant for sustainable supply chain management, namely SDG8 – Decent work and economic growth, SDG 9 – Industry, innovation and infrastruc-ture, SDG 11  – Sustainable cities and communities, and SDG 12  – Responsible consumption and production

This book examines and reflects on the advancement of management approaches towards supply chain relations and sustainability It evaluates approaches, tools and models available for businesses and organisations in the light of updated global developmental priorities formulated by the UN SDGs Launched on the 1 January

2016, the SDGs continue to highlight both global environmental challenges of resource depletion, environmental degradation and climate change, and reiterate the significance of social challenges of poverty alleviation, improving health and reduc-ing inequality, especially in emerging markets and developing countries (UN 2016) Built on the legacy of Millennium Development Goals, the UN SDGs renew sus-tainable development priorities at national levels, encourage business and organisa-tions to take an active role in delivering SDGs and emphasise the significance of partnerships between government, business and civil society in working together towards sustainable development objectives (SDG Fund 2015)

To date, supply chain management theory and practice have advanced to porate a systemic consumption and production view, global value chain perspective and finally, the sustainability through triple bottom line accountability approach (Seuring and Müller 2008) Sustainable management practices are being embedded

incor-in busincor-iness, incor-industry and regional contexts through product and process incor-innovation and improvement of stakeholder relations (Laszlo and Zhexembayeva 2011) The environmental dimensions of supply chain operations have been addressed with a variety of conceptual approaches  – closed loop production, continuous improve-ment of environmental performance, adoption of climate change mitigation strate-gies, industrial symbiosis and other elements of environmental management and circular economy approaches to production and resource management (Seuring and Müller 2008) There is a greater recognition that the relationships between suppliers and buyers, producers and consumers, distributors and procurers in the global sup-ply chains have a potent effect on the physical and social environments New initia-tives and models are being developed by businesses to address competing demands, reduce negative impacts and provide greater positive effect on employees, consum-ers, local communities, governments and other businesses whilst serving private and organisational goals and interests (Crane and Matten 2003)

Many businesses have progressed in considering sustainability implications and advancing sustainability principles along their supply chains (Feng et  al 2017) Through industry leadership, it is becoming a norm to implement and communicate sustainable practices to consumers and communities (Fortanier et al 2011; Kolk 2010) However, global business, production and trading operations continue to reproduce or ignore systemic poverty, inequality and environmental pollution (Idemudia 2009; Banerjee 2011) A paradox that has been highlighted in recent studies point to a gap between declared policies and environmental performance or the departure between rhetoric and practice (Font et al 2012; Pisani et al 2017) Resource management for future generations is a foundation of sustainable devel-opment Supply chain management has a considerable potential to reduce resource use by changing the systems of production and distribution and at the same time can address important developmental priorities in various regions

From a systems perspective, several important approaches have been proposed in the literature with a view to reconfigure the existing organisation of consumption and production that would satisfy human needs, respect human rights, improve quality of life and be inclusive of planetary boundaries (Williams et al 2017; Green et al 2017) These include circular economy and other elements of industrial ecology (Gold et al 2010; Liu et al 2011) and socio-technical transitions towards more sustainable con-sumption and production systems (Geels 2010; Geels et  al 2015) Both of these propositions emphasise the role of innovation, science and technology in enabling to deliver possible solutions to impending sustainability challenges Although the role

of science and technology cannot be underestimated, the renewed global sustainable development commitments open up a discussion on the extent to which current prop-ositions can address challenges of poverty, inequality and social injustice These challenges require further efforts, beyond technological advancement and innova-tion, in the realms of ethical commitment and social responsibility that ought to change organisational, individual and private approaches to the public good

Business ethics and corporate social responsibility offer a nuanced view on onciling private and public interests (Schwartz and Carroll 2003; Crane et al 2014) However, existing global value chains do not fully respond to developmental priori-ties of poverty alleviation and promotion of social equality (Kourula et al 2017) Many of the poor, marginalised and disenfranchised populations, for which the SDGs are built for, do not benefit from economically efficient, technologically advanced and globally financed, commercial goods and services supply chains.Emerging markets and developing countries are getting more involved in the world economy, not only through providing labour, resources and locations for pro-duction and distribution of goods and services in the global supply chains, but as consumers and sources of foreign direct investment These regions are faced with acute social and economic challenges, exacerbated by environmental problems and institutional complexity involving formal and informal institutions, political upheaval and cultural diversity (Ciravegna et al 2013; Dicken 2015).

rec-The aim of this book is to question how businesses and organisations can re- evaluate their practices and depart from a narrow view of mitigation of negative social and environmental impacts towards an active contribution to SDGs in regional and organisational contexts The book challenges current conceptual thinking on sustainable supply chain management and practice guided by the discussion on SDGs The book examines which management approaches can survive and thrive in the post-global economy whilst tackling social, environmental and economic con-cerns in supply chains

It reviews implementation issues and assesses the advancement of existing tainable business approaches and examines the opportunities for global value chains

sus-to increase their positive social and environmental inputs in regions, communities and organisations The book collects both conceptual and empirical studies set in a variety of business and organisational contexts, such as manufacturing, retail, pro-curement, cities and industrial parks It contests the accepted axioms of sustainable business practice in supply chains and proposes new models for the organisation of production networks that engage with societies and address social, environmental and economic concerns of communities and policymakers

The chapters are based on original research, and many studies were presented at the Greening of Industry Symposium held at Royal Holloway University of London

in Egham, United Kingdom in May 2017 The following sections outline the lenges and opportunities presented by the post-global economy for the future sus-tainable supply chains and discuss major contributions of the book

chal-1.2 Characterising the Post-global Economy

The nations, cultures and markets of the world have become increasingly integrated through the flow of people, capital, goods, and services; a process termed globalisa-tion (IMF 2000, 2008) Globalisation has occurred over time of rapid economic growth of the twentieth century, which accelerated cultural exchange, increased

industrial activity, and environmental ramifications from resource consumption This global interconnectedness defines the modern international trade, international production and operations of global supply chains (IMF 2000) However, this eco-nomic progress is not without its downsides Global supply chains stretch across developed and developing countries, raising concerns about environmental and societal impacts in distant and sensitive regions of the world (Dicken 2015) Whilst the bulk of global consumption is still taking place in developed countries, the sup-porting industrial production and investment is increasing in developing countries with the associated resource use and pollution Though globalisation flourished dur-ing economic growth worldwide, inequality, poor labour conditions, poor education and health are persistent in developing countries (Feng et al 2017; Gold et al 2010).The globalisation discourse is rapidly evolving We are observing a shift from previously increased openness supported by policies on liberalization of investment regimes and creation of free economic zones towards the opposite – greater national protectionism leading to creation of trading barriers with limitations on the move-ment of capital, people and goods (Hamilton and Webster 2015; Helleiner 1996) Notable examples are trade and immigration policies introduced by the Trump administration since 2017, the UK vote to leave the European Union (“Brexit”) in

2016 and prolonged discussions of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership since 2010, which signal a move from previously promoted economic, cultural and political integration between nations towards greater independence, protection of national economic and political interests and resources, development

of domestic markets, and distancing from perceived political, social and economic threats of an interconnected global economy, aiming to bring greater control over national borders, sovereignty and trade The post-global economy is characterised

by increasing protectionist policies and migration controls in the aftermath of 2008 global financial crisis (Bullon-Cassis 2011; Ghemawat 2017; Contractor 2017) The consequences of the financial crisis have affected rates of economic growth of nations, international trade, and cross-border investment and led to cautiousness over large mergers and acquisitions of the preceding decades (UNCTAD 2018)

As the context shifts from the globalising economy to the post-global economy,

companies will need to adapt their supply chains accordingly The vision of a ally integrated enterprise (Palmisano 2006), operating a centralised manufacturing configuration, moving and sharing resources across geographically dispersed sites,

glob-is currently under challenge It will affect global supply chains of corporations when moving materials and operating a globally mobile workforce (Ghemawat 2017; Contractor 2017) Emerging characteristics of this post-global economy stem from shifts in technological landscape as well Networked concepts such as Internet- of- Things can integrate supply chains and improve managerial decision-making These align with developments in distributed manufacturing and additive manufacturing (Srai et al 2016) Further, factory automation is altering the demands

on the factory workforce

Implications of the post-global economy upon global supply chains are unclear But their significance is already acknowledged and drawing attention (Ignatius 2017) The specifics regarding these geopolitical shifts themselves are beyond the

scope of this book The book merely highlights the relevance of post-global omy as a context for sustainable supply chain management in pursuit of the SDGs.The SDGs renew the sustainable development agenda for global communities and require that nations, communities, businesses and organisations reset their sus-tainable development policies Over the past decades, strategies to embed sustain-able development principles into business and supply chain operations have been actively conceptualised and implemented However, this is not enough to shift the economic and social conditions of poor populations around the world What will the global supply chains of the future look like? What social relations are needed in such global supply chains? How will businesses and organisations engage with societies, environments and complex institutional contexts in emerging markets and developing countries, which are faced with issues of population growth, needed leaps in infrastructure provision, educational and health improvements, cultural and institutional shifts? The SDGs by themselves are too broad to offer managerial guidance to corporations There is a need for management principles and tools that can assist businesses in supply chain decision-making.

econ-1.3 Contributions of the Book

The book offers readers a state-of-the-art view of sustainable supply chain ment in the context of developed and emerging markets, for achieving SDGs in the post-global economy The book is structured in two parts Part I presents conceptual approaches to integrating sustainable development principles into global supply chain management It critiques current academic and practitioner achievements in defining sustainability in supply chain management and re-examines management and relevance of supply chains to UN SDGs from a variety of conceptual perspec-tives such as ecology, stakeholder theory, systems, circular economy, and perfor-mance measurement

manage-Chapter 2 by Paul Nieuwenhuis, Anne Touboulic and Lee Matthews questions the existing principles and approach to sustainability in supply chain management and introduces a new view of supply chain management from an ecological per-spective set in the Anthropocene era

The pace of global economy after the financial crisis of 2008 and the slowing rates of economic development at national and global scales, as well as maturity of many developed economies, pose a dilemma whether businesses, organisations and communities can flourish and satisfy the needs of stakeholders in a degrowth context Chapter 3 by Belén Payán-Sánchez, Miguel Pérez-Valls and José Antonio Plaza-Úbeda critically examine the challenging context of potential degrowth as a business environment in which supply chains could operate and deliver on sustain-ability commitment

In Chap 4, Sudhir Rama Murthy, Steve Evans and Joseph Sarkis analyse the challenges presented by the post-global economy for supply chain management and examine how the basic freedoms of movement will be implemented in the post-

global economy where restrictions on goods and international trade are imposed by government policies.

Recognising the policy focus on circular economy recently suggested by many nations and regions, Alison Ashby, Aline Marian Callegaro, Kemi Adeyeye and Maria Granados contest the contribution of circular economy to sustainable devel-opment in Chap 5 and examine a new model of consumption and production, the spiral economy, outlining the potential of spiral economy for greater social inclu-sion and response to the demands of economic, social and environmental priorities and institutional challenges in developing countries

By bridging the priorities set by the UN SDGs and opportunities for application

in the sustainable supply chain management, in Chap 6, Anthony Alexander and Izabela Delabre discuss potential application of indicators and management of sus-tainability implications

Part II of this book explores implementation challenges of sustainable supply chain management It offers a review of how local and institutional conditions encourage development of new business models and strategies to maximise benefits for local and organisational stakeholders and contribute to local aspects of sustain-able development in a variety of institutional, organisational and geographical con-figurations such as small and medium-sized enterprises, construction and retail industries, cities, industrial parks and emerging markets

In Chap 7, Dora Ruiz-Méndez and Leonor Patricia Güereca studies the tions of life cycle assessment (LCA) as a tool for evaluation of environmental impacts of products in supply chain context and suggest a streamlined LCA appli-cable for small and medium-sized enterprises

limita-Using a case study of construction industry in Chap 8, Ankit Gaur and Diego A Vazquez-Brust critically examine strategies for adoption of Sustainable Development Goals within corporate social responsibility policies of companies using an exter-nalities theory

Regina Frei, Sally-Ann Krzyzaniak and Lisa Jack present a modern-day dilemma faced by the retail industry to manage product returns from online sales and physi-cal stores and discuss the opportunities and limitations of the application of sustain-able reserve supply chain approach in Chap 9

Taking a look at practical implementation of sustainable supply chain management in a specific geographical location  – cities  – Carol Mungo and María-Laura Franco-García analyse in Chap 10 how municipal policies and supply chain strategies can create local sustainable development

In Chap 11, Isabel Kreiner and María-Laura Franco-García further the focus and importance of studying local aspects of sustainable development by investigating industrial parks in Mexico and proposing ways for evaluating their contribution to sustainability at a local level The investigation of local cooperation and resource sharing by industry, local organisations and communities is highly relevant to the implementation of circular economy principles and brings forth potential benefits of post-global tendencies for greater local interdependencies and linkages

Finally, in Chap 12, Jorge Carlos Carpio-Aguilar, John Rincón-Moreno and María-Laura Franco-García discuss business strategies for the reduction of carbon

footprint in the retail industry by analysing the pitfalls and lessons from delivering

a food waste strategy in Walmart in Mexico

The topical coverage in this book reflects the breadth of sustainable supply chain research that can contribute to achieving the SDGs Current concepts in supply chain management – such as circular economy, reverse logistics, industrial parks, distributed manufacturing, and life cycle assessment – already have much to con-tribute in the emerging context of post-global economy While SDGs are global ambitions, their implementation requires action at multiple scales – local, regional and global The Chapters in this book look at different scales and problems within the supply chains and bridge supply chains with SDGs Sustainable supply chain research has benefited greatly by being an interdisciplinary field This interdiscipli-narity will be increasingly important in understanding the unfolding post-global economy and its effects on supply chain operations and how businesses and organ-isations can deliver on SDGs

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sustainabil-Part I Critical Conceptual Approaches

to Building Sustainable Supply

Chains for SDGs

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

N Yakovleva et al (eds.), Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainable

Supply Chains in the Post-global Economy, Greening of Industry Networks

Studies 7, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15066-2_2

Is Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Sustainable?

Paul Nieuwenhuis, Anne Touboulic, and Lee Matthews

Abstract It could be argued that for many years sustainable supply chain

manage-ment (SSCM) has been working in splendid isolation; making reference more to the SCM literature than to the steadily advancing literature in sustainable business or sustainability in general, e.g the growing literature on the Anthropocene Yet, recently there have been signs of greater synergies between these two fields and some publications now suggest that the SSCM literature is beginning to link with current thinking in sustainability and business (Matthews L, Power D, Touboulic A, Marques L, J Supply Chain Manag 52(1):82–94, 2016; Montabon F, Pagell M, Wu

Z, J Supply Chain Manag 52:11–27, 2016) This contribution attempts to build on

this by linking SSCM thinking with the newly emerging literature of business ience based more on ecological principles

resil-Keywords Sustainable supply chain management · Supply webs · Anthropocene ·

Diversity · Resilience

2.1 Introduction

In recent years the notion that the field of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has increasingly found itself out of step with the latest thinking in busi-ness sustainability has begun to emerge in the literature Whilst not yet fully

accepted by the community, nevertheless this seems a crucial development that will be built on in this chapter In addition, building on this line of thinking, the argument here is that in order to move to a genuine understanding of sustainability, the notion should be taken one step further in that it is argued that a move towards true SSCM would constitute an important step towards an alternative approach to sustainable business by internalizing more ecological thinking within business dis-ciplines It is further argued that SSCM is well placed to play a key role in such a development Thus, while – in the context of the existing SSCM literature – this can be seen as a radical notion, it is suggested here that there is an opportunity for SSCM to take on a leadership role in the development of a new and more genuinely sustainable approach to business.

This chapter presents a number of ideas that we believe have the potential to refresh our thinking on the sustainability of supply chains First, we present the concept of the Anthropocene, which will frame our thoughts on sustainability in this chapter Second, we will review the existing SSCM literature to consider why it has

so far failed to rise to the challenge of sustainability in the age of the Anthropocene Finally, we present some alternative concepts that we think provide fruitful oppor-tunities for rethinking supply chains in the age of the Anthropocene

2.2 Supply Chains in the Age of the ‘Anthropocene’

Human activity has increased to such a scale that we appear to have entered a new geological age in which humanity is now considered to be a planetary force in its own right, namely the Anthropocene (Crutzen 2002) The development of the con-cept of the Anthropocene forces us to acknowledge that the natural and human sys-tems have synthesised into a new Earth system that is no longer independent of humanity (Steffen et al 2007: p. 618) This new Earth system lacks the resilience of the natural system that humanity inherited in the Holocene Our globalized political economy emerged in the Holocene and the global supply chains upon which it depends will become more and more vulnerable to disruptions as the resilience of the Earth System is further weakened

The concept of the Anthropocene reminds us of the scale of the challenge ity faces as it becomes a steward of the Earth system It is not clear what kind of stewards we will be or how we will exercise our stewardship Will we try to improve the resilience of the Earth system by radically reducing the environmental impact of the supply chains that provide us with our goods and services? Or will those supply chains continue to be organized in the same way, leaving us to find other ways to exercise our stewardship, for example through geo-engineering projects? The twin problems of globalization and growth have produced the Anthropocene (Steffen

human-et  al 2011) and supply chains are engines of both Much of the pressure being placed upon the resilience of the Earth System is being exerted via the supply chains

of global corporations, which account for half of the world’s trade (Economist

2017) Many industries try to portray themselves and their offerings as ‘green’, such

as the automotive industry (Garland et al 2013; Nieuwenhuis 2014) but if we look upstream into those supply chains we see the natural system being transformed through a variety of other industries For example, at the deepest sources of the automotive supply chains we will see soil, groundwater and surface water being contaminated by mining companies We will see the fossil fuels needed to power the automotive supply chains being extracted in the forms of tar sands, mountain top mining and deep sea oil drilling and the emissions from the consumption of these fuels are transforming the climate of the planet Some corporations, e.g General Motors, try to offset these negative environmental impacts but these offsetting activ-ities result in manmade carbon sinks being grown and managed by other corpora-tions (General Motors 2015) but these forests little resemble those that emerged naturally in the period of the Holocene (McKibben 1989).

The field of Supply Chain Management has yet to engage with the concept of the Anthropocene but supply chains have been the engines of the globalization and growth that effected the transition towards the Anthropocene and the possibilities for responsible stewardship of the Earth system will largely be determined by the extent to which we are able to drive changes in the supply chains of global corpora-tions In this context, particular reference could be made to SDG 12, ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’, although it could be argued that supply chains also have the potential to impinge on several others, notably SDGs 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth, 9  – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, 11  – Sustainable Cities and Communities, 13 – Climate Action However, as with SSCM, the SDGs appear to downplay the central sustainability concept of care for future generations Even if this may be implied, it deserves to be made more explicit

Supply Chain Management (SCM) emerged as a field in the period of tion that was initiated with the establishment of the Bretton Woods system in 1944 and which accelerated in the 1990s following the Uruguay round of GATT and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (Johnsen et al 2014) Many of the globalizing trends, e.g increased competitive pressures, opening up of markets to trade, and offshoring, have made supply chains a strategic issue and a potentially interesting phenomenon to study (Harland 1996) But many of these changes have also resulted in huge transformations in the natural world as the scale of supply chain activity has become truly global

globaliza-Global supply chains became one of the principal engines of economic growth and environmental destruction in the Anthropocene and have helped transform the idea of growth from a mere possibility into a “core societal value” (Steffen et al

2011: p. 850) SCM has taken advantage of many of the globalizing trends of this period, e.g increased competitive pressures, opening up of markets to trade, and has contributed towards globalization through offshoring, which has acted as a driver of economic growth in countries such as China In this period, global supply chains became humanity’s dominant form of material production and are consequently one

of the most significant ways in which the Earth system is being transformed It is therefore difficult to see how we can become responsible stewards of the Earth sys-tem, or fully comply with these SDGs, without a major change in the organization

of the supply chains of companies towards post-global supply chains

2.3 Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM)

The dominant imagery for thinking about stewardship in the age of the Anthropocene is provided by the concept of sustainable development, which is a complex phenomenon that represents unparalleled challenges for business and business researchers alike It is a highly cosmopolitan problem requiring the forg-ing of connections across national borders, between sectors e.g business and the third sector (i.e voluntary sector), and across academic disciplines (Beck 2010; Hajer 1995; Urry 2011) Hence, sustainability requires thinking beyond the bound-aries of a single entity or organization to consider entire value chains and produc-tion and consumption systems (Lebel and Lorek 2008) This puts supply chains (SCs) and supply chain management (SCM) at the heart of the policy and practice agenda for sustainability

A review of the existing literature is instructive in highlighting the direction of research to date in this area Over the last 5 years, many literature reviews of SSCM have been conducted (Abbasi and Nilsson 2012; Ashby et  al 2012; Carter and Easton 2011; Carter and Rogers 2008; Miemczyk et al 2012; Touboulic and Walker

2015), taking stock of research in the field and showing the growing interest for and criticality of this area to both academics and practitioners alike It has been shown that the predominant focus has been on empirical research employing primarily surveys or positivistic case studies As a result, a great deal of knowledge has been accumulated on what practices companies are actually implementing as well as enablers and inhibitors Both internal (e.g capabilities) and external factors (e.g collaboration with suppliers) have been identified Not surprisingly these are factors already prominent in other areas of the SCM literature (e.g technology adoption) making SSCM appear to be just another “innovation” promoting and reinforcing the objective of supply chain efficiency In addition, such studies are often limited by the understanding of sustainability of those surveyed, which rarely reflects current thinking, thereby limiting true progress This perception is further reinforced by the attention paid to exploring the links between some aspects of a narrow sustainability framework (such as eco-efficiency and social responsibility) and firm financial per-formance (Thornton et al 2013; Wong 2013) in pursuit of that illusive ‘triple bottom line’ As pointed out by Pagell and Shevchenko (2014) not much has been done to understand “how” SSCM happens In addition the vast majority of these authors point to the alarming lack of theory in the field, and the limited attempts at theory building Given the strong focus on empirical, positivist studies in this area, this represents a significant shortcoming, which calls into question the relevance of empirical findings with such a weak theoretical basis

We contend here that the main challenge to the development of SSCM theory lies

in the difficulty that researchers face in dealing with the intrinsic complexity and inter-disciplinarity of the notion of sustainability and its fundamental concern with accommodating human activities within the broader Earth system On the one hand, there is the view that sustainability cannot be achieved at the micro-level, as sustain-able development is a macro-level concept (Ehrenfeld 2008) Further, it is a concept

that is not supported by current political economic structures and discourses which are generally geared towards growth despite the costs (i.e real costs externalised to society and/or to future generations), a problematic that is explored in areas like sustainable consumption and production (SCP) (Jackson 2009) or the ‘de-growth’ movement (Georgescu-Roegen et  al 1979; Kallis et  al 2012) These literatures challenge the dominance of the current economic growth principle as embodied in the existing economic model, which, it is argued, promotes increasing levels of inequality (Piketty et al 2014) and the uneconomic liquidation of natural capital (Czech 2013; Daly 1996; Dietz and O’Neill 2013) On the other hand, there is a school of thought that sustainability must be built simultaneously from the bottom

up and the top down (Meadows et al 2005)

From the paradigmatic literature of the 1990s, the SSCM field took the theories that most closely resembled its own concerns with competitive advantage, namely NRBV (Natural Resource Based View) (Hart 1995) and John Elkington’s ‘Triple Bottom Line’ (TBL/3BL), rather than the more challenging theoretical lenses offered by ecocentrism (Shrivastava 1995; Starik 1995), sustaincentrism (Gladwin

et al 1995) and the theory of the ecologically sustainable organization (Starik and Rands 1995) It has been recognised that the goal of harm reduction places an arti-ficial upper limit on environmental performance (Pagell and Shevchenko 2014) and thereby limits the extent to which the environment can be said to win from what are merely reductions in unsustainability In contrast, sustainable development would require firms and their supply chains to have a net positive effect on the Earth sys-tem (Pagell and Shevchenko 2014) Unfortunately, the field’s lack of engagement with ecology and ecology-influenced sustainability research means that we have little notion of what a more positive contribution might look like e.g the restoration

of natural capital (Hawken et al 1999) Secondly, there is increased recognition that social and environmental improvements simply will not always pay back in eco-nomic terms (Orsato 2009; Wang and Sarkis 2013) Still, often due to external pres-sures (Wang and Sarkis 2013) firms will have no choice but to make such investments regardless of whether they pay or not (Pagell and Shevchenko 2014)

Ecocentrism questions the notion that the environment is little more than an object that needs to be managed (Gladwin et al 1995) Natural capital has an intrin-sic value as well as the instrumental value of providing the foundations of our eco-nomic and social subsystems in the form of ecosystem services Shrivastava (1995) argues that the management researcher should try to represent the stake of the natu-

ral environment, “the stakeholder that bears the most risks from industrial

thus constructed as a moral question for practitioners and researchers alike The ecocentric paradigm also forces us to question one of the most taken for granted assumptions that underpin eco-efficiency: how firms make their profits in the first place Firms are able to make profits because they, and their suppliers, do not pay anything like a fair price for the environmental destruction that their economic activity is responsible for – these costs are ‘externalized’ to society and/or future generations The ‘economic world view’ (Krebs 2008) with its competitive and eco-nomic growth paradigm thus dominates the SSCM landscape and it is difficult for

theoreticians in this field to go beyond such traditional perspectives, which have been strongly influenced by neo-classical economics and the concept of ‘the busi-ness of business is business’ (Friedman 1970), even though sustainability issues may require a more radical shift in mindsets and business models This could allow transitioning to a new understanding of consumption and the purpose of the firm, as well as developing alternatives to the dominant discourse of growth In reality, SSCM research to date has been primarily focused on economic and environmental aspects and has not addressed the full complexity of systemic sustainability research and yet it would have a key role to play in any system transition.

Most SSCM research has focused on what practices would be most effective in achieving environmental and social performance with suppliers, without compro-mising on profitability (Matthews et al 2016; Pagell and Shevchenko 2014) and without questioning the very nature of particular supply chains and the extent to which what they supply and how they supply it are themselves ‘sustainable’ Van Bommel (2011) points out that “only limited frameworks in the literature analyze

particular, the literature has emphasized the issue of how companies should screen and select their suppliers against their social and environmental requirements The implementation of social and environmental practices cannot be reduced to prob-lems of screening and selection and there is a need to investigate how buyers are dealing with long-term legacy suppliers (Hoejmose and Adrien-Kirby 2012) Furthermore, Pagell and Shevchenko (2014) point out that current research in the field has failed to fully capture all of a supply chain’s impacts, i.e economic, social and environmental, mainly because of a theoretical distortion in favour of profit maximisation and economically beneficial practices It has been argued that organizational sustainability can only be fully achieved if sustainability issues are addressed at the SC level (Paulraj 2011; Preuss 2005) as they bring together a multiplicity of actors in different locations and have an impact at multiple levels

SC activities are a critical source of value and competitive advantage for businesses (Burgess et al 2006); thus an organization’s environmental and social performance

is affected by that of its suppliers (Tate et al 2010; Touboulic et al 2014) Simpson and Power (2005) and Touboulic et al (2014) have shown that supply relationships present a key way for business to influence the sustainability of products and services

SCs are made up of both formal quantifiable mechanisms of production and complex social interactions Each SC is unique, composed of an idiosyncratic col-lective of actors shaping their own micro-systems within the macro structure of the chain The very nature of SSCs suggests that a comprehensive understanding of their dynamics must account for their social complexity, their historical baggage and ambiguous causalities SSCs are highly embedded in context, and understand-ing of the SSC emerges in local situations and through specific interactions between buyers and suppliers as well as other actors in the network (Gold et al 2010) While specific initiatives have been introduced, the actual transition towards a more sus-tainable SC is not like a traditional organizational change initiative, which is finite and introduced over a specific period of time This transition is continuous, emergent and

is embedded within a broader movement, i.e it is not bounded by the organizational realm, but is about reframing the relationship between society and the natural envi-ronment (Paulraj 2011; Peattie 2011) Carter and Rogers (2008) note that economic, social and environmental objectives are interdependent and organizations must make the link between them Within organizations, as well as in the wider society, this therefore requires a fundamental culture change These aspects demonstrate that SSCM should be transformational because its implementation questions the status quo (Linton et al 2007; Matthews et al 2016; Montabon et al 2016; Touboulic and Walker 2016) SSCM is also relational because it takes into account not only intra and inter-organizational relationships but also relationships with society as a whole and the links between SC operations and the Earth system.

Much of the perceived complexity of the sustainability concept probably centres around the very concept of the triple bottom line This was in reality never part of the original sustainable development definition, as framed by the Brundtland Committee, which focussed instead on our responsibility to future generations In fact, by presenting sustainability as constituting the economic, the social and the environmental, the focus has been more on current concerns, as these three areas in reality can be dealt with at a current operational level, while sustainability, as pre-sented by the WCED (Commission 1987) very much emphasises responsibility to future generations, which moves it much more into the realm of the strategic In fact, separating the economic, social and, indeed, environmental once again from the sustainability concept may therefore be much more helpful in redirecting that primary focus back onto the future generations issue The economic, social and environmental can then be framed as more immediate concerns, thereby necessitat-ing more immediate action, while sustainability becomes a more over-arching idea informing these elements on a strategic level, rather than constituting them as sug-gested by the triple bottom line concept

Nevertheless, it is the triple bottom line concept that frames the strategies for transforming corporate supply chains that have been advocated by corporate sus-tainability practitioners and scholars The twin strategies for transformation most commonly advocated are eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness (Hajer 1995) Eco- efficiency is a concept that equates economic and ecological efficiency, and its advocates claim that if it is adopted, the political-economic system will be able to operate within the Earth’s estimated carrying capacity once again (WBCSD 2000:

p. 4) The problem with eco-efficiency is the ‘win-win’ philosophy that informs it (Banerjee 2012) Clearly, there is money to be made from reducing unsustainability but many believe that the win-win framing of eco-efficiency will act as a consider-able constraint upon the scale and scope of environmental action as it effectively rules out environmental strategies that have a negative impact upon the financial bottom line It is for this reason that some theorists consider the concept of eco- efficiency to be ideological, as it only focuses on the internalisation of a limited number of costs that it is in the interests of the corporation to manage (Banerjee

2012; Huesemann and Huesemann 2011) This suggests that the range of our responsibilities as stewards for the Earth system will be limited to those acts that

“yield parallel economic benefits” (WBCSD 2000: p. 8)

Clearly corporations are engaged in a plethora of diverse activities to engage their suppliers on the issue of environmental sustainability but it would appear that there are more reasons to be sceptical of the ability of such engagement strategies to deliver radical reductions in environmental impact than there are to believe in their efficacy There are three principal reasons for such scepticism One, the opportuni-ties to reduce the environmental impacts of supply chains will likely be more lim-ited or less attractive than has been assumed to date within the discourse on corporate sustainability Consequently, corporations will struggle to identify opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts of their external supply chains, despite the belief that such opportunities represent an opportunity for both buying corporations and their suppliers to reduce costs (CDP 2016; WRI/WBCSD 2007) Two, given the difficulty of identifying opportunities to meaningfully reduce environmental impacts within the corporate supply chain, the ‘sustainability’ strategies of supply chain partners will lag those of the operations of the corporation Three, in most cases, business growth will cause the total environmental impact of supply chains to increase In these cases, the growth in the impact of the external supply chain will

be greater than the reduction in impact that they will be able to achieve within their own operations However, despite the potentially problematic relationship between business growth and sustainability, it is not constructed as a significant problem within the discourse of ecological modernization We do not know of a single com-pany that presents their strategies in such terms, with the majority of companies electing to present themselves as leaders in corporate sustainability

There are clearly limits to the possibilities of reducing the environmental impact

of corporate supply chains through voluntary strategies such as supplier ment This is not to say that engagement has not and will not yield results For example, it is encouraging to see corporations and their third sector partners encour-aging suppliers to produce GHG inventories and disclose details of their climate change mitigation strategies (WRI/WBCSD 2007) Clearly, more radical approaches are needed to reduce the environmental impact of corporate supply chains and the strategies of eco-effectiveness and closed loop supply chains offer greater potential for switching off these engines of growth

engage-The concept of eco-effectiveness was developed in opposition to the concept

of eco-efficiency (Braungart and McDonough 2009) The advocates of eco- effectiveness argue that eco-efficiency is too concerned with how to make environ-mentally destructive value creation processes less destructive and instead the emphasis should be on how to redesign these so that they are not environmentally destructive in the first place The philosophy is one of bio-mimicry in which pro-cesses consume natural capital at sustainable rates and do not produce wastes that cannot be absorbed by the natural environment at a sustainable rate (Braungart and McDonough 2009) Ideally, such processes would not consume natural capital or

produce any waste (Ibid.) To some degree, the failure of eco-efficiency strategies to

deliver the radical reductions in environmental impact that they promise was dicted by those who advocate eco-effectiveness Eco-efficiency was inherently inef-

pre-fective (Ibid) But while eco-efpre-fectiveness is a more radical approach to corporate

sustainability than eco-efficiency, it shares the win-win framing of ecological

modernization and so effectively rules out any solutions that have negative impacts upon the economic bottom line of the corporation It is also based on the same model of ‘sustainable growth’ that ignores the impact of business growth on growth

in material and energy throughput (Huesemann and Huesemann 2011)

Of the two strategies, eco-effectiveness provides the best opportunity for ing the environmental destruction that is being caused by corporate supply chains Unsurprisingly however, there appears to be a strong preference for eco-efficiency strategies among the vast majority of large corporations This is likely because of the significant investments that closed loop supply chains require (Guide and Wassenhove 2001) Companies with closed loop supply chains for certain products, such as Herman Miller and Interface, stand out precisely because they are exceptional

revers-It should also be noted that closed loop supply chains are not the panacea for all environmental problems that they initially appear to be There are four issues that need to be considered While closed loop supply chains will be more insulated from the problem of growth, they are not immune to this problem Business growth will require the material throughput within the supply chains to grow also, which will require more raw materials to enter the supply chain Then, if the support supply chains for the closed loop supply chains are not themselves closed, business growth will increase the environmental impacts of the support supply chains Furthermore, closed supply chains will struggle to be 100% efficient as there are physical limits

to the number of times materials can be recycled For those closed loop supply chains that are not perfectly efficient there will always be a requirement for new raw materials to supplement the recycling process; something that is also true for the introduction of new, more environmentally optimized technologies that may require novel material flows, such as lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, for example Finally, it is imagined that closed loop supply chains will be powered by renewable energy but it needs to be recognized that renewable energy is not an unlimited resource, or, at least, there are limits to our ability to capture it For example, the amount of solar energy entering the Earth system is fixed and a higher level of solar energy consumption by humanity has the potential to lead to less energy being available for sustaining natural capital (Huesemann and Huesemann 2011), although this is challenged by others (Huber and Mills 2005) It is partly for these reasons that even exemplary corporations in the area of closed loop supply chains such as Herman Miller and Interface have yet to reduce the environmental impact of the supply chains for their most environmentally friendly products down to zero

2.4 Diversity and Supply Webs

This chapter argues that there is a problematic relationship between our globalized political economy, business growth and responsible stewardship of the Earth System SSCM scholars working with the concept of the Anthropocene will need to

be sensitive to the problems of globalization and growth when looking at corporate

supply chains and more broadly reconceptualize the relationship between growth and sustainability Rather than sustainability being a driver of growth, growth may

be better constructed as a potential barrier to corporate sustainability For those who consider this argument plausible, there is clearly a need to fundamentally re- evaluate our theories of SSCM. But also, this provides an opportunity for supply chain scholars to play a different role, one that is more engaged and able to propose post-global alternatives to established corporate sustainability strategies It is our argument that supply chains will need to learn from the very natural systems that are threatened by unsustainable supply chain strategies if we are to become respon-sible stewards of the Earth System An important step in broadening the SSCM model is thus a change from the current thinking of industries as machines (Field and Conn 2007), to thinking of industries as ecosystems and, by extension, supply chains in terms of food-webs Ecosystems need internal diversity in order to ensure their resilience to external forces, something that often leads to apparent redun-dancy and a lack of efficiency (Walker and Salt 2006; Nieuwenhuis 2014) This also moves beyond the current concern of making supply chains more ‘efficient’, i.e focusing considerable effort on doing more with less It is easy to understand this way of thinking – on the face of it by being efficient in our use of resources we appear to be more in tune with our environment and hence more ‘sustainable’ It is important to realize that this type of efficiency only applies in certain narrow cir-cumstances and is not universally applicable; some human systems, like most natu-ral systems need a degree of redundancy and apparent inefficiency to render them resilient and resilience is about ensuring longer-term survival, i.e sustainability in the broadest sense (Walker and Salt 2006; Nieuwenhuis 2014)

2.4.1 The Diversity Concept

Industrial ecology, through its notion of industrial symbiosis and its iconic concept

of eco-industrial parks featuring eco-system-like symbiosis among different trial processes (Frosch and Gallopoulos 1989; Heeres et al 2004), already promotes the concept of diversity: only if the members of a group of firms are diverse enough for the output of the processes of one to provide inputs into the processes of others can an idealised industrial symbiosis situation be brought about This is a SCM issue and a SSCM issue, but is also central to ecology and biology (Meadows 2009) Diversity arises naturally, in part through spontaneous mutation and also because species operate in niches; each species has a so-called ‘fundamental’ niche, which denotes the maximum niche that species could occupy in terms of climate, resources, etc in the absence of competition (Krebs 2008) With competition that species occupies its ‘realised’ niche, which is a sub-set of its fundamental niche It is no different in economies; without competition, a company can occupy an entire mar-ket, i.e it holds a monopoly position In reality, in a competitive environment, com-panies operate within their realised niches, which can vary over time depending on that competitive environment

indus-Bejan and Zane (2012) give the example of a forest floor, which combines tree canopies of varying size such that few spaces are left empty All have access to light, water and other resources according to their size, but there is room for all In mar-kets the same applies; in the car market, for example, mass volume producers such

as GM, Toyota or VW cover the major share of the market, followed by specialist mass producers such as BMW, Mercedes or Volvo, and followed by smaller special-ist producers such as Ferrari or Porsche The even smaller spaces in between are taken up by the likes of Morgan, Pagani and Lotus In a saturated community, all niches are filled, while in an unsaturated community not all niches are filled, so there is the potential for an invader, such as Tesla, to come in (Krebs 2008)

The concept of diversity, then, is based on that of biodiversity – the notion that a healthy ecosystem relies on the interaction of a number of different species (Molles

2005) This need for diversity has not always been accepted as fundamental In fact,

it can be said to have emerged as recently as the 1980s (Tilman 2000; McCann

2000; Lévêque and Mounolou 2001) Tilman reviewed the relevant literature and concluded that, usually, greater diversity leads to greater productivity in plant com-munities, greater nutrient retention and greater ecosystem stability (Tilman 2000) Recent findings also suggest that diversity may increase where and when there is greater environmental variability, i.e in a more changeable environment (Holmes

2013) This suggests that natural systems may prepare for such environmental bility, in order to be able to respond to it relatively quickly – it adds ‘resilience’ It

insta-is now widely accepted that loss of biodiversity can be damaging and insta-is certainly undesirable

The drive to research this concept means diversity is beginning to be regarded as desirable in a wider context and an increasing number of observers has attempted to apply the principle to social, economic and industrial structures Diversity in eco-systems comes into its own at times of change (Geng and Côté 2007) Diversity implies that for any given stable ecosystem there is a certain degree of apparent redundancy – the presence of species with no obvious role in the system (Peterson

et al 1998) It is in this respect that the concept may embody lessons for business, particularly in the context of SCM, where traditionally ‘efficiency’ has been pur-sued as a primary objective Is it possible that this pursuit of efficiency – while laud-able in many respects  – has in fact made supply chains  – and economies  – less resilient? This point is made by Walker and Salt (2006) who challenge directly the notion of ‘efficiency’ and instead highlight the important role of redundancy in order to achieve resilient systems Industrial evolution has gradually led to greater efficiency in our systems, however, as Walker and Salt have argued, this efficiency has also in many cases led to a reduction in system resilience Walker and Salt (2006) further point out that the response to external threats – the 2008 recession for example  – from many decision makers has been to advocate greater efficiency, although in fact, greater resilience may be required Peterson et al (1998) explain that any change may push an ecosystem to reorganize suddenly around a set of dif-ferent ‘mutually reinforcing processes’, as a ‘tipping point’ is reached that leads to

a different set of operating conditions and, they argue, that only a resilient system can deal with such – often dramatic – change

2.4.2 Resilience Through Diversity

Each system is driven by key processes at different scales and these link up to mine the behaviour of the system as a whole This scale effect allows a measure of mutual reinforcement while minimizing competition (Peterson et al 1998) Again,

deter-in supply chadeter-ins or networks we can see how small specialists can share resources with larger firms whose outputs it uses without competing with them Industrial symbiosis systems in IE are an example of this However, despite their size, these small players – perhaps lacking obvious economies of scale – help make the indus-trial symbiotic ecosystem more resilient, i.e more capable of withstanding change.This phenomenon also has advantages from a more conventional economic per-spective, as companies of different sizes can engage in different business strategies, because their interests do not overlap (Garmestani et al 2006) By taking this scale effect into account, what appears to be redundancy is often not (Peterson et  al

1998) In fact, as disturbances are often limited to specific scales, functions and firms operating at different scales are able to survive (Peterson et al 1998) It is pos-sible, for example, that a supplier hit by a disaster at a key facility may only be able

to supply 20% of its pre-disaster output; this may be enough to supply smaller tomers, while larger customers have to idle their plants until full capacity is restored

cus-In this way, there is no collapse of the entire supply chain, but merely a temporary reduction in supply to the market, met by some of the smaller players in an industry This may actually be sufficient to meet demand in an immediate post-disaster phase when demand may be much reduced Fujimoto and Park (2014) give the example of Toyota’s response to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami

Others warn however that the loss of species – e.g several large suppliers in a SC

in this context – would reduce resilience; the system as a whole becomes more nerable (Peterson et al 1998) This is true of many supply chains due to what they term ‘cross-scale functional reinforcement’ Supplies by larger players to smaller firms could be such a process, the loss of which would affect several smaller firms, although if some equivalent large firms survive, the small firms may be able to re- source The more limited the number of possible suppliers the more vulnerable their customers This point can be illustrated by the ‘bail-out’ of General Motors and Chrysler by the Bush and Obama administrations Although still resented by many

vul-in the US, it is quite clear that any collapse, of GM vul-in particular, would have led to

a collapse of much of the US automotive supply base, which in turn would have undermined the viability of surviving manufacturers, most notably Ford

An important step in broadening the SSCM model is a change to thinking of industries as ecosystems and supply chains in terms of food-webs This also moves beyond the current concern of making supply chains more efficient, i.e focusing considerable effort on doing more with less It is easy to understand this way of thinking – on the face of it, by being efficient in our use of resources we appear to

be more in tune with our environment and hence more ‘sustainable’ It is tant to realize that this type of efficiency only applies in certain narrow circum-stances and is not universally applicable; in fact some natural processes – such as

impor-seed production in many species – appear to us very wasteful Similarly, many human systems, like most natural systems need a degree of redundancy (‘hetero-geneity’ in Gruner and Power’s terms) and apparent inefficiency to render them resilient and resilience is about ensuring longer-term survival, i.e the future, or sustainability in the true sense.

2.4.3 Supply Webs

The term supply ‘chain’ is itself problematic as it forces people conceptually into linear thinking where linear thinking is inappropriate Whilst this approach can be defended, by instead thinking of supply systems as ‘webs’ analogous with food- webs in ecology, we can begin to understand how they can be made more resilient Ecology also initially thought in term of food ‘chains’, but observation

of actual natural systems prompted the change to conceiving of most of them as

‘webs’ (Krebs 2008) Chains are, after all, only as strong as their weakest link, while webs can sustain some damage before they are rendered inoperable So,

we think in terms of supply ‘chains’ – where linearity is implied, and ‘tiers’ of suppliers, whereby one tier feeds neatly into the next one up and up until the final assembler is reached This tiering approach is a caricature of reality even today This thinking came from the Japanese ‘keiretsu’ system, particularly at Toyota, which probably came closer than most supply systems to such a struc-ture, but even there, a true pyramidal tiering structure never fully existed Take materials suppliers, for example: providers of steel, glass, plastics or aluminium These are likely to supply into many of these tiers, such that they operate essen-tially parallel to the pyramid and throughout its entire elevation Similarly, energy suppliers Other suppliers supply electronic sensors that find their way into an ABS system an airbag system or an engine management system The former applications would see the supplier of such sensors supplying into so-called tier 1 or 2 suppliers; in the last application they would deal direct with the vehicle assembler, the OEM, while they might also supply the aftermarket So, where do they fit in a tiered structure?

In reality, supply systems are already more akin to ecological food-webs than to tiered pyramids; industries consist of series of interlocking webs of relationships between firms As part of these networks there are suppliers of various kinds, rela-tionships with other manufacturers such as memberships of trade bodies, but also more concrete arrangements such as joint development, exchange of components,

or even of products In addition, there are relationships with logistics providers, distributors, dealers, customers In fact network theories are also supportive of this notion (Provan et al 2007) Table 3.1 shows how the diversity and web constructs introduced in this section would have implications for how we think of SCs and their resilience Clearly these notions are as yet a work in progress, but they provide pointers to the direction for moves towards more sustainable SSCM theory

2.5 Conclusion

In this chapter, an attempt has been made to advance the SSCM agenda on two fronts First, the need for SSCM theoreticians to consider the extent to which they have long failed to engage with progress in thinking about business and sustainabil-ity has been highlighted, such that it is doubtful such work has contributed signifi-cantly to making SCs more sustainable in a scientifically meaningful sense It is similarly doubtful whether the SDGs will add any significant depth to this prevail-ing line of thinking The second aspect has been to try and leverage – tentatively thus far – a fuller understanding of sustainability in a business context to encourage SSCM theory to play a leading role in the inevitable transition from a worldview dominated by economic systems to one in tune with ecological thinking If SSCM

is able to engage with this emerging ecological agenda, it could be well positioned

to play a leading role in the transition to a more sustainable economic system, as promoted by more sustainability-aware disciplines and sub-disciplines such as industrial ecology, sustainable consumption and production, de-growth, and others

In the short and medium term there are perhaps more practical implications for SSCM, such as the need to think of the organization and supply chain as integral parts of natural ecosystems (Gladwin et al 1995) It will also require a re-think on

a number of other issues, such as the current focus on waste – as waste is not a cept that is relevant from an ecological perspective, as it inevitably provides an input

con-to other processes; the true ‘closed loop’ – and also growth and productivity, which are not always in line with a sustainability perspective; i.e should SSCM consider issues raised by the SCP and De-growth literatures? Other issues to consider for integration into such new models include the nature of relationships that are mostly based on a profit-maximising orientation and power seeking, the focus on cost mini-mization and that of doing more with less: the search for efficiency Instead, such a model would highlight concepts and principles from an ecological perspective, which can be applied to re-conceptualise the question of resilience in supply chains, such as systemic interdependence and balance, the notion of scale: global vs local

Table 3.1 Main constructs and their implications for SC resilience

Construct Meaning from ecology Implication for SC resilience

Diversity The notion that a

healthy ecosystem relies

interlocking webs of

relationships in any

system

Allows moving away from a linear view of supply chains

to the more systemic concept of supply webs which are more resilient as they rely on an array of interconnections and are more flexible

and also at the level of the organization that of small and larger organizations In all this it should then aim to replicate the principles of a living system: not a question

of resource exploitation but harmonious complementarity and interdependence

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N Yakovleva et al (eds.), Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainable

Supply Chains in the Post-global Economy, Greening of Industry Networks

Studies 7, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15066-2_3

Supply Chain Management in a Degrowth

Context: The Potential Contribution

of Stakeholders

Belén Payán-Sánchez, Miguel Pérez-Valls, and José Antonio Plaza-Úbeda

Abstract The planet is changing and consumption patterns appear to be one of the

main causes The Earth has physical limits and eternal growth is basically not sible In this context the economic theory of degrowth arises to change present con-sumption and production habits in order to ensure the survival of our planet and its inhabitants Sustainability is a very important concept in the operations manage-ment field nowadays In this chapter, we will contribute to this field discussing areas where degrowth is present explaining the important contributions of the stakeholder theory to reach a more sustainable supply chain, contributing to the achievement of SDGs With this, we aim to highlight the influence that stakeholder pressures have when making supply chain management decisions to achieve a higher sustainability level in the firm, and ultimately, in the whole system

pos-Keywords Degrowth · Stakeholder’s influence · Supply chain management ·

Sustainable development goals

3.1 Introduction

The planet is caught up in a process of change (Sekulova et al 2013) and tion is one of the key problems In the international debate about the future eco-nomic progress, the need to manage the natural environment in a more sustainable manner is becoming more and more significant (Global Footprint Network 2007)

consump-In this context, the economic theory of degrowth arises as a collective economic approach, highly debated and orientated towards provoking a change in present production and consumption habits so that markets declare the survival of our planet and its inhabitants to be an essential objective (Schneider et al 2010)

However, the importance of the economic theory of degrowth has been limited in recent years due to its difficulty in moving into business management In the

B Payán-Sánchez ( * ) · M Pérez-Valls · J A Plaza-Úbeda

University of Almería, Almería, Spain

e-mail: belenpayan@ual.es ; mivalls@ual.es ; japlaza@ual.es

economic sphere, diverse indicators accepted by the international community have been developed relative to measuring from a macroeconomic point of view the potential contributions of an economic model based on the premises of sustainabil-ity, such as the index of sustainable economic welfare, ecological footprint or human development index (Daly and Coob 1989) although some other practices have not become fully developed in business management Neither the development of social and environmentally sustainability practices nor the widespread use of measures aimed at assessing the success in managing such practices have been successful due

to the clear lack of innovation on the part of management (Jackson 2011; Desore and Narula 2018)

In the pursuit of sustainable development in markets, as well as in the entire planet as a whole, firms need to commit to including settings and areas in the orga-nization that include degrowth characteristics or attributes This would lead to a balance that would allow sustainable development, because continued growth in all parts of the company is not possible

The importance of sustainability in the field of operations management is clear

in business management nowadays (Sarkis et  al 2011) Avoiding change in the operations area of organizations is not possible if we want to achieve sustainable development, thus contributing to increased welfare and real progress for the pres-ent and future generations And this is not only in our immediate environment, but

in the entire planet as well Our planet’s limits are being increasingly evident both

on the supply side (increasingly less water, minerals, oil, etc.) and on the sink side (which produce pollution and waste) (Sorman and Giampietro 2013) This implies that organizations, when making any decision related to its activity, have to take into consideration the environment, establishing a commitment of equity between what

is taken from it and what they contribute to it, as well as trying to make a positive contribution to both its social and economic welfare

In this sense, we see the supply chain of a company as a cooperative space and not just merely a fight for value creation with economic objectives, which is an attitude of mainstream businesses (Brix-Asala et al 2018) This spirit of coopera-tion among participants is present in the discourse of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations 2015) In this situation, stakeholders are seen as being responsible for more sustainable business practices and as promoters of sus-tainability within the supply chain of the company as well as at a more global level.Thus, our chapter seeks to discuss sustainability in operations management where degrowth contexts are present, explaining the importance of stakeholders in contributing to a more sustainable supply chain These practices would contribute to achieve a more responsible production and consumption in the market, creating sustainable cities and communities and promoting enduring, inclusive and sustain-able economic growth in the terms included in SDGs (n° 12, 11 and 8 respectively)

3.2 Degrowth and Management

Degrowth aims to further itself from the tenet that managerial growth is the sole engine behind companies and the economy in general In the past, this idea has had harmful effects on the environment around us (Latouche 2008) Degrowth is not a simple concept but a well-known one, conceived to make an impact on the economy and on companies (Latouche 2008) The degrowth movement proposes the attain-ment of autonomous, self-sufficient and environmentally-respectful companies, with potential enough to guarantee well-being for all the citizens through the local resources available As Latouche (2008) explains, it is necessary to change the fun-damental standards of management and to concentrate on the six “Rs”: re-assess, re-conceptualize, re-organize, reduce, reuse and recycle In short, it is essential to change current management and innovate in new sustainable practices

We follow the concept of degrowth offered by Shrivastava (2015) since we do not neither refer to concepts of recession or stagnation, or even medium-term econ-omy’s shrinkage In contrast we see the degrowth movement, as other authors have expressed (e.g Brown and Garver 2009), related to the fact that “due to ecological limits and social and intergenerational considerations, conventional economic growth as currently measured will generally slowdown, and economies will have to fit within socially and ecologically acceptable parameters” (Shrivastava 2015) As this author states, degrowth is an empirical reality as well as a response to current ecological and economic crises In this work, we will center in the former sense of the concept, thus considering it as the context in which companies are placed.Under the economic theory of capitalism, companies pursue the maximum ben-efit of their shareholders (Friedman 1970), meaning that shareholders set the busi-ness objectives And this is not a minor question Stakeholder integration (Doyle 1994; Freeman 1994; Jensen 2001; Plaza-Úbeda et al 2010) is an essential point to keep in mind when designing business objectives The involvement of all stakehold-ers in the business decision making process is at the same time an ethical require-ment (Jones et al 2007), a source of competitive advantages (Berman et al 1999; Walsh 2005) and a way of management that goes beyond the economic benefit, looking to ensure the survival of the company in the long term (Post et al 2002)

In the end, what is important for stakeholder integration in business ment, is the establishment of collaborative ties among the interested parties and sustainable management within the company, which until now has been one of the main signs of success in these management practices (Sharma and Vredenburg 1998; Rueda-Manzanares et al 2008; Sorman and Giampietro 2013) Stakeholder management, generally in consonance with Corporate Social Responsibility, is an indication of how business objectives can be associated with questions different from growth and economic objectives Being socially responsible consists not only

manage-of firmly obeying the laws manage-of the countries where companies are established, but also on moving aspects such as human capital or environmental protection to the front line