The greenness of green supply chain
management: a systematic literature review
by
J.J. (JEROEN) JANSSEN
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc. Supply Chain Management
2
Abstract
Literature about GSCM is becoming increasingly important. Some authors state that not all literature aims to be truly green (eco-effective), but a significant amount only focuses on the operational and competitive advantages (eco-efficiency). The purpose of this article is to find evidence concerning the current debate about two strands in GSCM-literature: reducing cost while increasing environmental efficiency or avoiding negative environmental impacts to increase environmental performances. This study uses a systematic literature review, various articles will therefore be analyzed on the eco-efficiency vs. eco-effectiveness perspectives, different Life-Cycle-Analysis (LCA) and the Planetary Boundaries (PB). It appears that there are two strands and only a very small amount of literature focuses on becoming truly green. This research has extended the existing knowledge about what organizations drives in becoming green and which dimensions play an important in this greening process.
Keywords: Green supply chain management, eco-effectiveness, eco-efficiency, sustainable supply chain, systematic literature review
Supervisor: Dr. Kristian Peters
4
Introduction
The integration of economic-, environmental- and social performance concerns is receiving more attention from organizations, which can be handled through the practices from Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) (Shi, Koh, Baldwin & Cucchiella, 2012). GSCM emerged from Supply Chain Management (SCM) known as an integrated system of cooperative relations, processes, information and knowledge-sharing through activities among organizations to gain competitive advantages. GSCM focuses on improvement of environmental- and social performances of these organizations and their relations (Shi et al., 2012). GSCM can reduce costs, increase flexibility and efficiency through identification of opportunities in cooperation with up- and downstream partners and stakeholders in the decision-making process on supply chain business plans (Kumar, Teichman & Timpernagel, 2012). Organizations that want to maximize the overall environmental profits should adopt green practices along the entire supply chain (Shou, Shao, Lai, Kang & Park, 2019) because “An organization is no more sustainable than the selected suppliers pertaining to the organization” (Krause, Vachon & Klassen, 2009; Golicic & Smith, 2013).
What sustainable development and ‘green’ entail, how organizations can reach it and how it can be measured is frequently discussed in literature. However, it remains still unclear what constitutes green and how to operationalize it, with regards to environmental sciences, in terms of SCM. Sustainable development is originally defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future population in meeting their needs, by the Brundtland Commission (Clift, 2003). The idea of sustainable development lies in improving and ensuring a better quality of life, for everyone now and in the future by looking at three pillars of sustainability: people, planet and profit (Agrawal & Singh, 2019; Clift, 2003).
5 The debate is constructed out of several claims. Research is, as first, focused on making unsustainable supply chains sustainable through harming the environment at its minimum and creating positive or regenerative impacts of the environmental and social systems (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014). Furthermore, profits are the ultimate assessment of supply chain performances where managers and shareholders are the most important stakeholders in the supply chain (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014). Montabon et al. (2006) are contradicting this, by stating that GSCM is only focused on organizational profits instead on environmental and social impacts on the entire supply chain and its future impacts. Stakeholders are not seen as the most important in a supply chain.
Elaborating on these impacts, Pagell & Shevchenko (2014) mention that the objective measures of environmental- and social practices generally do not measure the entire supply chain impact and these measures place a upper limit on organizational performances. For example, reduced emissions are linked to larger profits so this implies that reduced emissions lead to better environmental performances along the supply chain. But the aspect of outsourcing production to a supplier which reduces emission for the focal company, does not directly lead to better environmental performances of the organization (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014). Continuing, when practices have a negative economic impact they cannot be sustainable anymore, and organizations should focus on environmental and social practices that positively contribute to economic performances (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014; Golicic & Smith, 2013). Through only focusing on the ‘standard, well known practices’ in GSCM, the development of critical new practices to understand how truly sustainable supply chains can be established is often missed by organizations (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014; Shi et al., 2012). Furthermore, due to these standard practices a shift in the value creating point in the supply chain cannot be noticed. This could lead to not having the right future-focus regarding supply chain impacts, resulting in not having the right GSCM practices in the future (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014; Shi et al., 2012).
6 perspective about the environmental and social impacts of an entire supply chain. This is because it requires lesser information and monitoring than measuring the environmental impacts based on the emission of each supply chain member (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014). Also possible environmental impacts will be analyzed based on the presence of Planetary Boundaries (PB), which represent boundaries and the declining state of the ecosystems linked to organizational processes and corporate behavior (Whiteman, Walker & Perego, 2013).
This research aims to provide dimensions of what green constitutes in literature through operationalizing it regarding SCM. Secondly, by analyzing literature with the measurements this research will substantiate or weaken the claims provided for the debate about the two strands in GSCM literature. An overview is created through assessing the articles to demonstrate which measurement aspects of GSCM are considered in literature. For the execution of the assessment, the eco-efficiency vs. eco-effectiveness perspectives are used (Huppes & Ishikawa, 2005; Young & Tilley, 2006; Lindner, Braungart & Essig, 2019; Burnett, Skousen & Wright, 2011), as well as LCA’s (Shan et al., 2020; Zhu et al., 2019) and also the PBs are taken into account (Whiteman, Walker & Perego, 2013; Scholten & Schilder, 2015; Rockström et al., 2009; Slawinski & Bansal, 2015; Azapagic, Stamford, Youds & Barteczko-Hibbert, 2016; Linnenluecke, Birt, Lyon & Sidhu, 2015).
In order to contribute to the existing debate, it is important to analyze literature pertaining explanation why researchers use certain definitions and operationalizations of GSCM and whether subjects are related to eco-efficiency or eco-effectiveness, LCA-levels and/or PBs. Critical reviewing literature of definitions and operationalizations regarding GSCM has not been performed before, but is highly important to continue research in the future. Future research is needed to gather more proof for the existence of the two literature-strands, since these evolve over time, and to be able to in-depth understand green developments and motives. This is because a good scientific understanding about what green entails, is necessary for organizations to determine what green really is and how it can be established. This study contributes to this understanding.
7 describes the analysis and results of the executed review method. The fifth and last chapter, the discussion, shows the conclusions, limitations and suggestions for further research.
Theoretical background
Modern organizations are exposed to an increasing necessity to make their supply chain more green, given the harmful consequences of supply chain practices on the environment (Kumar Jahkar, 2014). Supply chain practices can, however, directly affect the natural environment by focusing on improving economic, operational or market performances (Golicic & Smith, 2013). A green-oriented organization will therefore always actively seek how to respond to environmental impacts rising from their organization, as this exemplifies a company’s internal long-term commitment towards green decision-making by tackling external challenges (Shou et al., 2019).
Organizations can develop green supply chain strategies that either resemble resource productivity or maximize resource productivity, enabling organizations to enhance performances regarding the environment and industry (Kumar et al., 2012). Yet, different expectations can rise about the real value of resources in conceiving and implementing a market strategy regarding products to create competitive advantage (Barney, 2012). Resources (e.g. assets, processes, attributes, capabilities, information and knowledge under organization control) are known as highly mobile in terms of adaptability to a specific organization strategy (Barney, 1991). This high mobility is a ‘nice to have’ since companies make different decisions regarding resources for the reduction or elimination of the environmental impact of management- or supply chain process issues (Golicic & Smith, 2013). These decisions determine the relationship between environmental sustainability and company performances (Golicic & Smith, 2013).
8 various environmental measurements is therefore grouped together into measurement systems (Björklund et al., 2012).
In this article, a well-established method will be used to measure the environmental impacts of a supply chain, even across company borders. It is called Life-Cycle-Analysis (LCA), which can be useful for organizations to use for identifying risks and opportunities in the supply chain (Zhu, Sarkis & Lai, 2019). LCA is a tool to envision potential environmental impacts and resources, all along the life-cycle of a product (i.e. from material acquisition, production, usage and waste management/ End-of-Life management) (Finnveden et al., 2009). The data gathered via this method can be used to reengineer the supply chain to improve the overall environmental performance (Facanha & Horvath, 2005 in Björklund et al., 2012, p. 33; Shan et al., 2020).
Second, recognized in the article of Björklund et al. (2012) for the most reoccurring grouped measurements for environmental impacts are the Planetary Boundaries (PB) identified by Whiteman et al. (2013). These PBs entail nine critical Earth-systems based on their thresholds and processes, which are: interference with the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, amount of biodiversity losses, ozone depletion, acidification of the ocean, fresh water use globally, chemical pollution, change in use of land, climate change and atmospheric aerosol loading (Rockström et al., 2009; Whiteman et al., 2013). These boundaries will be taken into perspective as a measurement regarding the environmental impact of supply chain processes. However, they will not be identified as a category but recognized if one of these boundaries is mentioned in the literature: yes or no.
Organizations that want to reduce their environmental impact, increase the value of production and become greener in their overall performances (Huppes & Ishikawa, 2005) can also envision the eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness perspectives as measures of sustainability. Both perspectives describe the relationship between environmental and financial performances from organizations in a supply chain. The motivation of organizations regarding this relationship can however differ among the two performances (Putri & Sari, 2019).
Planetary Boundaries (PB) and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)
socio-9 ecological thinking compiled out of the following two perspectives: resilience thinking (e.g. being able to proceed business activities after disruption) (Scholten & Schilder, 2015) and the social ecological system in which people depend on and influence environmental resources (Chapin et al., 2009 in Whiteman et al., 2013). These PBs provide necessary conditions to be able to sustain human life, and to thrive and develop conditions for generations to come (Linnenluecke et al., 2015). Single green issues cannot be managed alone, since PB identifies that changes in the state of the earth’s ecosystems are a line of interlocked processes that are orchestrated in a complex pattern of social and environmental dynamics (Whiteman et al., 2013). For example, when one boundary is trespassed it can endanger and compromise other boundaries (Linnenluecke et al., 2015). However, balancing short-term needs of an organization with the long-term needs of the population is difficult due to different levels of analysis and availability of resources (Slawinski & Bansal, 2015). Organizations have and need to consume resources in order to survive, but over consuming could endanger the survival of coming generations as natural resources are scarce, finite or renewable but slow to regenerate (Slawinski & Bansal, 2015; Rockström et al., 2009). To address sustainability, solutions must be considered in a wider economic, social and environmental framework instead of focusing on just one aspect of the system (Azapagic et al., 2016).
Life cycle analysis are tools to compare and evaluate a compilation of inputs, outputs and their potential environmental impacts regarding the production system and the life-cycle of a product. Also known as ‘cradle-to-grave’-cycle (Shan et al., 2020), a simple version of a product- life-cycle is depicted below in figure 1. The LCA-method exists of four phases: 1) materials acquisition, 2) production, 3) use and 4) end-of-life recovery/treatment/disposal (Zhu et al., 2019). The identification of a LCA-phase can identify where a large environmental burden is located in the product-life-cycle in an article (Shan et al., 2009; Zhu et al., 2019). The large environmental burden in a LCA-phase can then possibly linked to the impact on the Planetary Boundaries.
10 Some claims from the debate which can be linked to the LCA and PBs, the first one stemming from Pagell & Shevchenko (2014) ‘that the objective measures of environmental- and social
practices generally do not measure the entire supply chain impact and these measures place a upper limit on organizational performances’. The second claim linked to the LCA and PBs
stems from Pagell & Shevchenko (2014) and Shi et al. (2012): ‘Through only focusing on the
‘standard, well known practices’ in GSCM, the development of critical new practices to understand how truly sustainable supply chains can be established is often missed by organizations. Due to these standard practices a shift in the value creating point in the supply chain cannot be noticed. This could lead to not having the right future-focus regarding supply chain impacts, resulting in not having the right GSCM practices in the future’. This because
these two claims discuss impact measurements and missing new opportunities due to focusing on the standard processes, which implies that no analyses have been performed regarding risk and opportunities.
Eco-efficiency vs Eco-effectiveness
Organizations that want to reduce their environmental impact and increase the value of production and become greener in their overall performances (Huppes & Ishikawa, 2005) can envision the eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness as measures of sustainability.
Eco-efficiency is defined in several ways. Huppes & Ishikawa (2005) define it as a general goal for value creation while diminishing the environmental impact as a ratio between economic cost and the environmental impact. However, the World's Business Council for Sustainable Development formulates it originally as “being reached by the delivery of competitively priced
goods and services that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life, while progressively reducing environmental impacts and resources intensity throughout the life cycle, to a level at least in line with the earth’s carrying capacity” (Lindner et al., 2019, p.2). ‘Doing more with
11 inefficiencies can be reduced through improvement of processes and also technological innovations. These improvements are part of the organization’s strategic planning to reach environmental and performance goals of the organization (Sinkin, Wright & Burnett, 2008).
Eco-effectiveness is stated as 100% goodness; it is a vague term, and no systematic definitions or measurements have been defined for eco-effectiveness according to McDonough and Braungart (2001, in Barbiroli, 2006). The focus of this strategy lies on the adoption of management practices aimed at reducing environmental intensity by process improvements and innovations and increase the environmental productivity which yield long-term benefits for a company and its stakeholders (Burnett et al., 2011). The long-term perspective is created through promotion of the cradle-to-cradle flow of materials, not only aiming to reduce wastes but also to increase the quality and productivity of material flows through cycles (Linder et al., 2019). Since eco-effectiveness is related to all the natural resources available, it could also be called ‘resource-effectiveness’, because organizations that want to improve their environmental impacts or production processes, have to increase their resource productivity (Barbiroli, 2006). So, eco-effectiveness enables organizations to operate in such a way that both company and nature will be productive, by removing negative impacts and developing systems to enhance and restore the natural environment (Young & Tilley, 2006).
Operationalizing eco-effectiveness indicates that natural resources can be linked to the PBs, but do not have to (Barbirolo, 2006). However, an improvement in the resource productivity is often combined with using energy- or materials more intense, whether the optimal eco-effectiveness-point is reached when zero resources are used (Barbiroli, 2006). This can be depicted as a slope (figure 2). The Planetary Boundaries are categorizations of the environmental impacts of organizational activities and processes along the supply chain. These impacts increase through exploiting for example energy- or materials more intensively
(Barbiroli, 2006).
12 Some claims from the debate can be linked to the eco-efficiency, the first stems from Pagell & Shevchenko (2014): ‘Profits are the ultimate assessments of supply chain performances where
managers and shareholders are the most important stakeholders in the supply chain’ because
the eco-efficiency focuses mostly on economic performances reached through environmental practices. A second claim, from Pagell & Shevchenko (2014) and Golicic & Smith (2013) can also be linked to eco-efficiency: ‘When practices have a negative economic impact they cannot
be sustainable anymore, and organizations should focus on environmental and social practices that positively contribute to economic performances’.
Claims that can be scaled in terms of eco-effectiveness are as follows: ‘Research is focused on
making unsustainable supply chains sustainable through harming the environment at its minimum and creating positive or regenerative impacts of the environmental and social systems’ (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014), this because eco-effectiveness focuses on regenerating
and increasing resource productivity. Furthermore ‘By stating that GSCM is only focused at
organizational profits instead on environmental and social impacts on the entire supply chain and its future impacts. Stakeholders are not seen as the most important in a supply chain’
(Montabon et al., 2006), because organizational profits will only increase with higher resource productivity.
The analysis with the aforementioned methods will be performed in a framework as displayed below in figure 3.
Figure 3 - Research Framework
Methodology
13 2018). According to Tranfield, Denyer and Smart (2003), this method uses a replicable, scientific and transparent process, aims to minimize biases through exhaustive literature searches and provides clear evidence of the procedures, decisions and conclusions of the researchers (Cook, Mulrow & Haynes, 1997; Tranfield et al., 2003). Also many other recently-published articles about GSCM used SLR as a research method (e.g. Fischl, Scherrer-Rathje & Friedli, 2014; Friday, Ryan, Sridharan & Collings, 2018). The model for SLR of Agamez-Arias and Moyano-Fuentes (2017), which is adapted from the five stages of Denyer and Tranfield (2009), is used in this research. The five stages are question formulation, locating studies, study selection and evaluation, analysis and synthesis, and reporting and using results. All stages are considered below.
Data collection
The selection process of relevant articles started by using the database of Scopus, since it is one of the most complete academic databases containing papers regarding management, environmental sciences, engineering and operations research (Gurtu, Searcy & Jaber, 2015). By entering the search terms ‘green supply chain management’ and searching for title, abstract
and keywords, 3129 articles were available. To reduce the number of articles, not all of the
available journals were used. A selection was made out of previous used journals in literature reviews since these journals had high impact factors (lowest factor is 94) and seemed the most relevant for this subject. The selected journals are: Journal of Cleaner Production, International Journal of Production Economics, Business Strategy and the Environment, International Journal of Production Research and International Journal of Operations and Production Management. The available articles had to be peer-reviewed and written in English since a widespread audience should be able to access it (Agamez-Arias & Moyano-Fuentes, 2017). The period between 2015-2020 was used to focus on the most recently published terms in the academic literature (Gurtu et al., 2015). Furthermore, only published journal articles were considered, so (e-)books, dissertations and any kind of unpublished work (e.g. theses, working papers) were not used.
Data analysis
14 of this research regarding the analysis of the articles. The name of the author and the publication year were taken into account, which was necessary to check if the right articles were in the analysis regarding the time period of 2015-2020. These categorizations formed the input for the quantitative approach in which all the articles were assessed and categorized. Approaching data quantitatively enabled to make the data visible in graphs and numbers to base conclusions regarding several green factors (Badi & Murtagh, 2019).
The analysis was performed based on the aforementioned keyword ‘green supply chain
management’. The articles found in the database of Scopus were analyzed based on the criteria
mentioned above and in the framework depicted in the theoretical background. The articles were categorized based on the eco-efficiency or eco-effectiveness perspective, LCA-levels and PBs. The articles were separately assessed among these three main categories, so the categories are not directly linked to each other.
15 A couple of examples regarding the eco-efficiency & eco-effectiveness categories can clarify the above mentioned. Articles with the full eco-efficiency perspective talked about improving a firm’s financial performance or competitive position through environmental performance improvements or even improving their company reputations (Longoni & Cagliano, 2018; Seman et al., 2019; Kumar Singh & El-Kassar, 2019; Yan et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2020; etc.). Partial eco-efficiency articles talked about improving processes to enhance the environmental performances through collaborations or management practices, not mainly focusing on cost reduction (Heari & Rezaei, 2019; Feng et al., 2018; Micheli et al., 2020 etc.). Most of the articles in the category ‘Not Clear’ are focusing on the scholarly-side of GSCM- research and did not contribute to the research aim of this article. These articles discussed for example doing research on reward mechanisms, using typologies and taxonomies to develop theories on GSCM and even evaluating operational environmental/sustainable approaches etcetera. (Kumar et al., 2015; Chen & Ulya, 2019; etc.). The articles categorized in the partial eco-effectiveness category, discussed the main focus on environmental performances and how entire supply chains could improve this (Yao et al., 2020; Badi & Murtagh, 2019; etc.) or making regenerative and recycling supply chains (Mathiyazhagan et al., 2015; etc.). The full eco-effectiveness category had no articles which could be classified beneath it, so no examples are available.
Subsequently, concerning the LCA-levels, many articles discussed the supplier selection, circular economy, inventory control and management in combination with material acquisition-level (García-Alvardo et al., 2017; Yu et al. 2018; Kazancoglu et al. 2018; etc.). The production-level resembled the production processes which had to cope with environmental regulations, uncertainty reducing through decision support tools, improving operations via toolboxes (i.e. Lean) (Kang et al., 2020; Banasik et al., 2019; Fercoq et al., 2016; etc.). None of the articles are classified beneath the usage-level. The End-of-Life-level is frequently mentioned in articles as remanufacturing products, creating regenerative processes to recycle product into ‘new’ resources, trying to reach ‘zero-waste’ and lowest cost as possible (Kushwaha et al., 2016; Iqbal et al., 2020; Chen & Ulya, 2019; Ozturkoglu et al., 2019; etc.). Lastly, the category ‘none’ resembled articles which did not mention any of the LCA-levels.
16
Analysis
The articles collected via Scopus are quantitatively approached in the data analysis, in order to be able to present results in numbers across the five-year span and ultimately derive conclusions from it. By following the steps presented in the data collection section, the remainder of articles after application of the search criteria entailed 101 articles, spread over five journals with a five year distribution, visible in figures 4 and 5. Journal of Cleaner Production (JOCP) had 68 articles, International Journal of Production Economics (IJOPE) had 18 articles, Business
Strategy and the Environment (BS&E) had 6 articles, International Journal of Production Research (IJOPR) had 6 articles and International Journal of Operations and Production Management (IJO&PM) had 3 articles. The distribution of the amount of articles over the
time-span of five years and the number of analyzed articles per journal are visible in the graphs below.
Figure 4 – Distribution of total published articles in selected journals, about GSCM
17 As mentioned in the methodology section, the analysis of the articles consisted of categorizing the perspectives, the LCA-levels and the PBs. The categorization is visible in the table below, table 1. An explanation about the classification categories is needed to better understand the analysis, this will follow after the table.
Table 1 – Analysis of the articles in categories
Article Full Eco-Efficie ncy Part. Eco-Efficie ncy Not Clear Part. Eco-Effecti veness Full Eco-Effecti veness Mate-rial aq. Pro- duc-tion Us ag e End-of- life Man. None PB Yes PB No Agarwal et al. (2018) • • •
Badi & Murtagh (2019) • • •
Banasik et al. (2019) • • • Bask et al. (2018) • • • Borgstedt et al. (2017) • • Brandenburg (2015) • • • Carballo-Penela et al. (2018) • • • Chavez et al. (2016) • • •
Chen & Ulya (2019) • • •
Chiappetta Jabbour et al. (2016) • • •
Coelho et al. (2016) • • •
Davis-Sramek et al. (2020) • • •
dos Santos et al. (2019) • • •
Dubey et al. (2015) • • •
Fang & Zhang (2018) • • •
Feng et al. (2018) • • • Fercoq et al. (2016) • • • Gabriel et al. (2018) • • • García-Alvardo et al. (2017) • • • Geng et al. (2017) • • • Habib et al. (2017) • • •
Haeri & Rezaei (2019) • • •
Hasani et al. (2015) • • • Hashemi et al. (2015) • • • Iqbal et al. (2020) • • • Ji et al. (2015) • • • Kang et al. (2020) • • • Kannan et al. (2015) • • • Karaman et al. (2020) • • • Kaur et al. (2018) • • • Kazancoglu et al. (2018) • • • Khor et al. (2016) • • •
Kirilova & Vaklieva-Bancheva (2017)
• • •
Kuei et al. (2015) • • •
Kumar Sharma et al. (2017) • • •
Kumar Singh & El-Kassar (2019) • • •
Kumar et al. (2015) • • •
Kushwaha et al. (2016) • • •
Kusi-Sarpong et al. (2016) • • •
Laari et al. (2016) • • •
Laari et al. (2017a) • • •
Laari et al. (2017b) • • •
Lake et al. (2015) • • •
Larsson & Holmberg (2018) • • •
18
Li et al. (2018) • • •
Liou (2015) • • •
Liu et al. (2018) • • •
Liu et al. (2020) • • •
Longoni & Cagliano (2018) • • •
Lopes de Sousa Jabbour (2015) • • •
Luthra et al. (2016) • • •
Mahdiloo et al. (2015) • • •
Malviya & Kant (2016) • • •
Martí et al. (2015) • • • Mathiyazhagan et al. (2015) • • • Micheli et al. (2020) • • • Miroshnychenko et al. (2017) • • • Mishra et al. (2019) • • • Nasir et al. (2017) • • • Nejati et al. (2017) • • • Nielsen et al. (2019) • • •
Noh & Kim (2019) • • •
Ozturkoglu et al. (2019) • • • Pinto et al. (2018) • • • Piyathanavong et al. (2019) • • • Pohlmann et al. (2020) • • • Reche et al. (2020) • • • Roehrich et al. (2017) • • • Schöggl et al. (2016) • • •
Scur & Barbosa (2017) • • •
Sehnem & Oliveira (2017) • • •
Seles et al. (2016) • • • Seman et al. (2019) • • • Shahzad et al. (2020) • • • Silva et al. (2018) • • • Stindt (2017) • • • Suzuki (2016) • • • Tabasso et al. (2020) • • • Tachizawa et al. (2015) • • • Teixeira et al. (2016) • • •
Tian & Sarkis (2020) • • •
Tognetti et al. (2015) • • •
Tramarico et al. (2017) • • •
Trapp & Sarkis (2016) • • •
Tumpa et al. (2019) • • • Vanalle et al. (2017) • • • Wang et al. (2016) • • • Wang et al. (2018) • • • Woo et al. (2016) • • • Wu et al. (2019) • • • Xing et al. (2016) • • • Yan et al. (2018) • • • Yang et al. (2019) • • • Yao et al. (2020) • • • Yu et al. (2018) • • • Yu et al. (2020) • • • Zaid et al. (2018) • • •
Zaman & Shamsuddin (2017) • • •
Zhao et al. (2017) • • •
19 It turned out that in total 23 articles are categorized in the full eco-efficiency category, 30 articles in the partial eco-efficiency category, 14 articles in the partial eco-effectiveness category and 0 full eco-effectiveness articles in that category. For 34 articles, the perspective of the article was not clear and could not be assigned to a category, as is visible in figure 6.
Figure 6 – Perspective categorization
Full Eco-Efficiency, is identified in articles by paying attention to whether the main goal of the
article was reducing negative environmental impacts through cost reduction or resource reduction. So, in general articles classified as ‘full eco-efficiency’, share the idea that GSCM is useful in cost management and green production to reach a certain level of competitive advantage in the market. For example through establishing a growth in sales and cost reduction which encourage firm performances and knowing environmental impacts.
Partial Eco-Efficiency, is identified as efficient improvements by taking the environmental
aspect into account but not having it as a main goal. Articles share the perspective of evaluating multiple alternatives to enlarge efficiency and performances while simultaneously reducing the environmental impacts for example in the production processes. Alternatives from inside the organization like eco-design, reverse logistics, green purchasing, green manufacturing and packaging or alternatives from external parties who put pressure on organizations to improve profits and thereby competitiveness.
Not Clear, is identified as articles that have an unclear perspective regarding GSCM. For
20 any operationalization regarding the concept of green in the article itself. This caused these articles to not explicitly fit within one of these perspective categories.
Partial Eco-Effectiveness, is identified as structuring or compiling processes around natural
systems to use less natural resources through a regenerative industry. Articles in this category share the focus on more sustainable production and including more sustainable elements with environmental thinking in the management of a supply chain. For example through the reduction of material flows, the reuse of resources, minimum energy consumption and also collaboration along the entire supply chain via supplier monitoring possibilities.
Full Eco-Effectiveness, is identified as avoiding negative environmental impacts through
monitoring the use of natural resources. None of the analyzed articles could be placed in this category.
LCA-levels and PBs
Furthermore, as visible in figure 7, it turned out that in total 15 articles are categorized in the Material acquisition- level, 12 articles in the Production-level, 0 articles in the Usage-level, 14 articles in the End-of-Life Management-level. For 60 articles, the LCA-level could not be determined since it was not mentioned in the articles itself.
Figure 7 – LCA-level categorization
Material acquisition is categorized as the process of collecting materials; also supplier selection
21 the products and the environmental impact during this phase. Lastly, end-of-Life treatment entails the steps of product disposal or recycling to new resources/materials for other products (i.e. regenerating, reverse logistics etc.).
Regarding the Planetary Boundaries, visible in figure 8, it turned out that 45 of the analyzed articles are categorized in the category of ‘PB yes’ and 56 articles are categorized in the category ‘PB no’. Articles categorized in the category ‘PB yes’ are discussing several boundaries, for example: air pollution and carbon emission (Kirilova et al., 2017; Kushwaha et al., 2016), waste generation and water use (Fercoq et al., 2016), overall climate change (Zhao et al., 2017) etcetera. When articles are categorized in ‘PB no’, none of the PBs are mentioned in the articles.
Figure 8 – Planetary Boundary categorization
To be able to provide evidence regarding the claims made in the debate, as mentioned in the theoretical background, data from table 1 should be simply depicted to determine if and how often articles contribute to the claims based on their categorization. This is visible in tables 2 and 3. GSCM literature can imply to be green, but it cannot be truly green if it does not consider any of the perspectives, LCA-levels or the PBs regarding the environment. Since crucial parts of GSCM are, as mentioned before, a mix of tools and perspectives to become more green.
22 Table 2 – Perspective distribution
Table 3 – LCA-level and PB distribution
Discussion
This study has provided insights and evidence for the discussion that is currently being addressed by academia about the different strands in literature regarding green, in which one stream focuses on being truly green and avoiding negative impact on the environment, while the other focuses on economic interests and using sustainability to become more efficient. 101 articles in total, have been analyzed at the eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness perspectives, the LCA-levels and PBs. The eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness perspectives were taken into account on five different categories, the LCA has been analyzed on five different levels and the determination of the existence of PBs in articles has been categorized in “Yes” or “No”. The analysis provided several results. To begin with, many articles focus on the full (23) or the partial (30) eco-efficiency perspective. These articles aim to be or strive for green, but their main focus is efficiency and, ultimately, economic purposes. A smaller portion of the articles (14) focuses on the negative environmental aspects and 0% of the GSCM literature aims to be truly green. Based on these findings, it appears that there are two strands in GSCM literature, each with different goals.
Elaborating on the existence of the two strands, in the debate consisting out of claims, some results are found. In the following paragraphs the claims and the results from this research will be discussed. Starting with the first two claims regarding the eco-effectiveness (1) “Research
23 and social systems’ and (2) “By stating that GSCM is only focused at organizational profits instead on environmental and social impacts on the entire supply chain and its future impacts. Stakeholders are not seen as the most important in a supply chain.”. Based on the results of
this research can be concluded that there is enough evidence to prove the existence of the first claim in the debate, because 14 articles talk about partial eco-effectiveness, where most of the articles mention the importance of creating a regenerative supply chain through recycling to reduce the use of virgin resources. However, none of the articles provided proof for the second claim since some articles mentioned the importance of stakeholder-involvement in greening the supply chain.
Regarding the eco-efficiency, two claims have also been made (1) “Profits are the ultimate
assessments of supply chain performances where managers and shareholders are the most important stakeholders in the supply chain” and (2) “When practices have a negative economic impact they cannot be sustainable anymore, and organizations should focus on environmental and social practices that positively contribute to economic performances”. Based on the results
of this research can be concluded that there is enough evidence to prove the existence of the first claim in the debate. Because 53 articles talk about partial- and full eco-efficiency, where most of the articles address the importance of evaluating the alternatives along the supply chain with all members, to enlarge efficiency and performances while reducing environmental impacts. The second claim has also enough proof since articles showed that GSCM is useful in green production and cost management to reach certain economic performances.
Lastly, two claims regarding the LCA and PBs have been made (1) ‘That the objective measures
of environmental- and social practices generally do not measure the entire supply chain impact and these measures place a upper limit on organizational performances’ and (2) ‘Through only focusing on the ‘standard, well known practices’ in GSCM, the development of critical new practices to understand how truly sustainable supply chains can be established is often missed by organizations. Due to these standard practices a shift in the value creating point in the supply chain cannot be noticed; this could lead to not having the right future-focus regarding supply chain impacts, resulting in not having the right GSCM practices in the future’. Based
24 mention any of the LCA-levels. Regarding the second claim, no evidence is found in the analysis.
Based on these findings, it appears that there is enough evidence for the existence of the two strands in GSCM literature, each with different goals. However, multiple authors have emphasized the need for theoretical research and modeling of frameworks regarding greening the supply chain to be able to form global networks, perform benchmark activities or employ a strategic green decision-making tool. This could be an implication for future research to gain more knowledge about GSCM. Furthermore, is has been proven that efficiency & eco-effectiveness, LCA and PBs play an important role in the determination of green on several levels with different detail/focus areas. However, it could be interesting for future research to deepen out and align the focus areas more with each other to establish for example green reference-points to help the greening process. The eco-efficiency & eco-effectiveness are mostly envisioned from the managerial/organizational point of view, the LCA-levels are focused on environmental impacts in life-cycle phases and the PBs are focusing on the larger environmental impacts stemming from organization- and supply chain processes. The last implication for future research is aimed on the focus of GSCM studies. It appeared during the analysis that articles focus more on one specific organization and greening that organization, instead of focusing on the ‘green’ in the entire supply chain where green supply chain management stands for. This could be interesting to investigate to be able to green supply chains more.
The existing debate regarding the two strands in literature was mentioned as the starting point for this research. This analysis has shown that the GSCM literature provides evidence for the existence of both strands. However, these articles should be approached with restraint since they are not always as green as its author(s) claim(s). This research provides a base for other research to build on, concerning the perspectives in combination with the PBs to elaborate on the importance of these boundaries and the need to consider them with regards to green or the processes for greening. This can also be taken into account regarding the LCA-levels and/or the combination of both.
25 Furthermore, not all the articles defined the concept of green supply chain management, as expected beforehand. It was unclear for some of the articles which definition was used as a lens regarding the subject of the article. Thirdly, not all the articles had a clear point of view regarding the eco-efficient or eco-effectiveness strategy, which made it harder to categorize them. These articles are marked as “not clear’’, but have been included in the further analysis since they had valuable information regarding the other categories. This was also the case for the LCA-levels; a category ‘None’ was added in the analysis since there was an option that the articles did not mention any of the LCA-levels but had useful information for the other categories. In conclusion, this research has extended the existing knowledge about the greenness of articles, the strategies of becoming green and what aspects should be taken into account.
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