Towards a global CO2 calculation standard for supply chains: Suggestions for methodological improvements

Improving the efficiency in the links in the supply chains of agri-food products is relevant in terms of the assessment methodology and practical aspects for ensuring and supporting sustainable supply chains of products not only in individual channels of product movement but also in the end-to-end supply chain of products, i.e., from the field to the end consumer. However, it is still unclear which supply chain opportunities in commodity distribution channels are more effective for creating end-to-end sustainable supply chains for agri-food products. The purpose of the study is to develop a methodology for assessing the impact of agri-food supply channels on the efficiency and link in supply chains, taking into account the factors affecting them and developing recommendations for their improvement. Quantitative methods based on correlation and regression analysis using the EViews program on the basis of Kazakh statistical data for 2008–2022 were used. A methodology is proposed for assessing the effectiveness of the functioning and links in commodity movement in the supply chains of agricultural products at the macroeconomic level based on the consideration and use of important factors affecting the efficiency and links: production and sales volumes, total costs, and profitability for each supply channel: “production–processing–industrial production–trade”. The relationship between the efficiency and the links in supply chains and also the key factors that affect them have been established. The results showed that the increase in the efficiency in supply channels in the commodity distribution system leads to a decrease in the coefficient of the link in commodity movement and inventory availability. To reduce the link ratio in the supply chains of agri-food products, it is necessary to increase the efficiency in supply chains in each supply chain link and reduce the share of retail trade in the gross turnover. Recommendations are proposed to improve supply chain efficiency and reduce links to support and create end-to-end sustainable supply chains of agri-food products. The study makes an essential contribution to providing empirical evidence of the relationship between the effectiveness of agri-food supply channels and the link in the supply chain. Since few works describe the relationship between the links of product distribution and the efficiency in supply chains in the literature, in this work, it was possible to propose a methodology and identify factors and gaps in research to identify potential areas for future research.

This study examines the balance between urban transportation security and supply chain efficiency amid global disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic, attacks on maritime lanes, and geopolitical conflicts. The authors combine bibliometric network analysis and natural language processing (NLP) to review scholarly literature from 2017 to 2023. This approach identifies and visualizes evolving thematic trends. Findings reveal a shift towards integrating advanced technologies, such as blockchain, AI, and IoT, to enhance security without compromising efficiency. This study highlights the significance of integrating urban planning principles and sustainable practices to enhance transportation security and supply chain efficiency within urban environments. Actionable insights for policymakers and supply chain managers emphasize the adoption of integrated, technology-driven security solutions to foster resilient and sustainable supply chains. This research contributes to academic discourse by refining the understanding of evolving priorities in transportation security and supply chain management, offering both theoretical and practical implications for secure and efficient global supply chains.

The impact of financing mechanism on supply chain sustainability and efficiency

Supply chain efficiency, transparency, and sustainability can be enhanced using blockchain technology. Blockchain enables a company to accurately track raw material origin to finished products, which ensures standard quality and sustainability. Furthermore, blockchain improves partnerships between supply chain stakeholders by providing a confident, common platform for sharing data. The influence of implementing blockchain technology on supply chain sustainability includes reduced wastage, increased resource transparency, monitoring of social standards, and reduced operational costs. The challenges of blockchain implementation include scalability, incorporation with present systems, lack of expertise, safety and confidentiality, and regulatory uncertainty. Companies can tackle these challenges through collaborative approaches and technical improvements. In general, blockchain technology significantly enhances supply chain sustainability and efficiency, which provides opportunities for creative business solutions.

In 21 century, the market competition tends to compete between supply chain and supply chain. The competitive power of the supply chain comes from the cooperation of supply chain company. This paper made research on the cooperative relationship between supply chain enterprises, analyzed the non-cooperative and cooperative game strategy between supply chain enterprises, compared the cooperation efficiency in both cases. The efficiency of most supply chain is low under non-cooperative strategy, and cooperative game can make the supply chain get greater return in the theory. The conclusion is that long-term cooperation in the supply chain can lead to greater benefits for the supply chain enterprises. Therefore, cooperative game strategy can improve the overall efficiency of the supply chain, and also allows for maximum individual interests. The results make all parties to obtain higher returns, achieve win-win situation.

CO2 emissions mitigation potential of buyer consolidation and rail-based intermodal transport in the China-Europe container supply chains

Enhancing supply chain traceability and efficiency in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector is critical for mitigating counterfeit losses and ensuring product integrity. This study proposes a comprehensive model for the implementation of blockchain technology tailored to the unique demands of the FMCG supply chain. The model emphasizes transparency, accountability, and real-time data sharing among stakeholders, including manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and consumers. By integrating blockchain, the FMCG industry can create a tamper-proof record of each transaction and product movement, significantly improving traceability from production to point-of-sale. Key components of the proposed model include a decentralized ledger that captures product information, provenance data, and transaction history. This approach facilitates efficient tracking of products, enhances supply chain visibility, and enables stakeholders to authenticate goods at any stage. Moreover, by employing blockchain’s smart contract functionality, the model allows for automated compliance verification and streamlined processes, reducing the time and resources required for audits and inspections. The study further explores potential extensions of blockchain technology to incorporate smart contracts that can automate various supply chain operations. These contracts can facilitate automatic payments upon delivery confirmation, trigger inventory replenishment orders based on real-time data, and enforce compliance with regulatory requirements without human intervention. By leveraging these technological advancements, FMCG companies can significantly reduce counterfeit losses and improve overall supply chain efficiency. This not only protects brand reputation but also fosters consumer trust, which is vital in an increasingly competitive market. The implications of this research highlight the transformative potential of blockchain technology in the FMCG sector, paving the way for future innovations in traceability and efficiency. In conclusion, this study presents a robust framework for blockchain implementation in the FMCG supply chain, addressing critical issues of traceability and counterfeiting while offering pathways for future enhancements through smart contracts.

Recently, supply chain finance has attracted increasing attention from the scientific community. However, it lacks serious consideration of social preference in supply chain finance. In this paper, we examine the effects of altruism and reciprocity on the efficiency of a capital-constrained supply chain consisting of a manufacturer with no original capital and a retailer with limited capital in a perishable product market with uncertain demand. The retailer may be in need of short-term financing. We show that, when the retailer has not enough money for his ideal inventory, financing will significantly improve his utility and supply chain efficiency, and global altruism will improve his financing willingness. Moreover, when the retailer borrows a full loan or has more than enough capital, both the global altruistic behavior and the intrinsic altruistic behavior allow sustaining more efficiency of supply chain than with selfish ones, but a more reciprocal behavior improves efficiency if and only if the manufacturer is intrinsically more altruistic than the retailer. Nevertheless, it is different from what may be expected that when the retailer borrows a limited loan or does not borrow but use up all the capital, altruism and reciprocity have no effect on supply chain efficiency. This article thus effectively encourages capital-constrained supply chains to incorporate financial consideration into production decisions and properly guides the firms in the chains either to act more altruistically or to reciprocate more the attitude of their partners.

Increasing concern about the sustainability of supply chain operations is motivating companies and organizations to pursue strategies to reduce their contribution to global environmental and social negative impacts. While most papers in the field of sustainable supply chains have focused on economic and environmental performance at the firm level, recently some studies have considered the problem at the national level. However, there still exists a gap in quantitatively modeling social impacts, together with environmental and economic impacts, at the global level. To fill this gap, this research presents a multi-objective mathematical model for the design and planning of a supply chain, integrating the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social). In this research, the economic dimension of sustainability is addressed by considering the costs of the supply chain. Then MRIO, a national input-output table that describes the interdependencies between countries and economic sectors, is integrated with national environmental and social impacts to construct a triple bottom line (3BL) approach by industrial sectors. This model supports decision making by including both direct impacts, as well as indirect impacts, associated with upstream supply chain paths. This expands the range of impact considered in sustainable performance measurement both within and beyond the supply chain boundary. The integrated model can improve a company's ability to select supply chain partners based on a wider range of criteria, rather than being based on economics alone. A case study is conducted that considers three tiers of the transportation and equipment supply chain, which consists of six industrial sectors that are part of a larger system of fourteen industrial sectors operating across seventeen of the largest manufacturing countries in the world. The model is solved using a [epsilon]-constraint method; and the resulting Pareto optimal curves show the tradeoffs between the economic, environmental and social dimensions. The results reveal that indirect economic activities dominate when contributing to the environmental and social impact of the whole system. Expanding the scope of sustainability changes supply chain configuration decisions. Therefore, the primary result from this research is that firms and industry sectors need to change their focus from solely on economic aspects and include environmental and social aspects in supply chain decision making at operational and/or strategic levels of decisions.

Sustainability is significantly important for fashion business due to consumers’ increasing awareness of environment. When a fashion company aims to promote sustainability, the main linkage is to develop a sustainable supply chain. This paper contributes to current knowledge of sustainable supply chain in the textile and clothing industry. We first depict the structure of sustainable fashion supply chain including eco-material preparation, sustainable manufacturing, green distribution, green retailing, and ethical consumers based on the extant literature. We study the case of the Swedish fast fashion company, H&M, which has constructed its sustainable supply chain in developing eco-materials, providing safety training, monitoring sustainable manufacturing, reducing carbon emission in distribution, and promoting eco-fashion. Moreover, based on the secondary data and analysis, we learn the lessons of H&M’s sustainable fashion supply chain from the country perspective: (1) the H&M’s sourcing managers may be more likely to select suppliers in the countries with lower degrees of human wellbeing; (2) the H&M’s supply chain manager may set a higher level of inventory in a country with a higher human wellbeing; and (3) the H&M CEO may consider the degrees of human wellbeing and economic wellbeing, instead of environmental wellbeing when launching the online shopping channel in a specific country.

Green supply chain management (GSCM) integrates environmental considerations into traditional supply chain management (SCM) to enhance sustainability and reduce environmental impact. By adopting this, firms can improve efficiency, minimise waste, and achieve competitive advantages while addressing economic, social, and environmental goals. At the heart of this transformation lies the digitalisation of supply chains, which involves the consolidation of processes and data onto unified platforms, the automation of key operations, and the utilisation of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT). These technologies empower organisations to analyse vast data, enabling them to identify, predict, and prevent issues that may compromise sustainability objectives. This chapter briefly introduces sustainability in the supply chain, and the digital revolution impacting the supply chain, and further elaborates on the impact of these trends on supply chain performance. The chapter also includes a bibliometric review of the use of digital technology on supply chain performance. The review analyses the publication trends, identifies key research areas, and assesses influential authors, institutions, and core journals about the identified topic. It also examines geographical distribution, citation networks, and collaborative networks while highlighting common methodologies and research gaps. The review reveals a growing number of publications annually, particularly in recent years, indicating increased research activity at the intersection of supply chain sustainability and digital technology. It offers evidence-based insights for policymakers and industry leaders to implement effective sustainability and technology strategies in supply chains and highlights under-researched areas, guiding future research efforts to advance the field.

Sustainability is a timely topic. A sustainable supply chain is one which aims to maximize the system's performance in three dimensions, namely environment, economics, and society. In the fashion industry, with the advance of big data related information technologies, achieving a sustainable supply chain is no longer a dream. In this paper, we first establish that a fashion supply chain is in fact a typical system of systems. Then, we examine several critical big data related technologies and applications which are related to sustainable fashion supply chain management. After that, we develop and present the design principles, from a system of systems perspective, for developing a sustainable fashion supply chain. Based on these principles, we further propose a novel five steps framework for achieving sustainable fashion supply chain management in the big data era. A sustainable fashion supply chain system of systems matrix is also constructed.

Sustainable supply chains are nowadays-targeted systems by both academics as well as industrial organizations. The Vaccines Supply Chain (VSC) being of utmost importance because of its great relevance in the world health, should be designed and operated in an optimized form not only aiming to guarantee high service levels at minimum costs but also considering environmental and social concerns. This study addresses such goal and proposes a Multi-Objective and multi-period Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MO-MILP) model for the simultaneous design and planning of sustainable VSC. The three dimensions of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL)—economic, environmental and social are modelled considering respectively the maximization of the Net Present Value (NPV); minimization of environmental impacts; and maximization of social impacts. The model is applied to a representative European supply chain case study, based in a European company. The outcomes obtained with the different scenarios studied clearly show how strategic and tactical decision-making impacts on key performance indicators in a VSC. Again, by the results, it becomes clear the existence of trade-offs between the sustainability dimensions considered and the importance of using multi-objective approach to find feasible and sustainable solutions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unmeasured disruptions and challenges to the supply chain both in public and private Institutions not only in Kenya, but Globally. Public institutions are characterized by regulations which tend to be more procedural than sustainable. Supply chain sustainability in public institutions and tertiary ones in specific, are vital for a long-term growth of education in the country since the government has invested heavily in ensuring an equitable education in Kenya. This research paper theorized the structure of a sustainable supply chain in TVET Institutions in Kenya amidst the disruptions caused by COVID 19 pandemic. The structural illustrations for supply chain sustainability in this study were supply chain agility and supply chain virtualization while policy formulation was used as the moderating variable on supply chain sustainability in the selected tertiary institutions in Kenya. The study adopted the efficient supply chain analytical structures such as the Pareto Analysis and Total Interpretive Structural Model for theoretical underpinnings. The respondents of this study were procurement managers and data were collected virtually through google forms structured in the Five Likert Scale format. The study findings revealed that supply chain agility was lacking in the selected Tertiary institutions; Supply chain virtualization were uncommon, while there was no policy on supply chain agility and policy on supply chain sustainability among the selected tertiary institutions in Kenya. The study recommended a structural policy formulation for agile supply chain and virtualization of supply activities in the tertiary institutions in Kenya.

Achieving the goals of the sustainable development concept stimulates the use of multimodal systems and intermodal cargo delivery technologies in supply chains. The configuration of the network structure of supply chains in this case becomes more complex following the increase in the number of participants and the diversity of technical and technological parameters of transport systems. The authors have analysed the problems of using piggyback technology as part of supply chains.The objective of this study is to establish a set of universal characteristics of piggyback systems that determine their sustainability in supply chains. The study used a systems approach to present piggyback technology as to a complex technical system, the main elements of which are intermodal transport units, railway rolling stock and terminals connected by the technology and organisation of piggyback transportation. A developed original system of criteria for choosing a piggyback system considers the current trend in development of transport systems and supply chains from the perspective of their sustainable development.It is shown that the decision to use piggyback systems as part of sustainable supply chains must be made based on amulti-criteria assessment of the parameters of all elements and relationships within these systems. The system of criteria developed by the authors allows adequate evaluating piggyback systems, coordinate their engineering and technological parameters, and also justify decisions on unification of intermodal transport units.