Sustainable Solutions for SCM

green logistics are important dimensions of GSCM practices needed by manufacturing sectors to achieve enhanced sustainability performance. Green et al. [26] suggested that GSCMpractices should include internal environmental management, green information systems, green purchasing, cooperation with customers, eco-design and investment recovery. Lee et al. [37] published the opinion that GSCM practices are composed of corporate and operational strategies to improve the environmental sustainability such as internal environmental management, green purchasing, cooperation with customers and eco-design. Authors of contemporary literature usually presenting GSCM practices from four important perspectives: green procurement, green manufacturing, green distribution and green logistics [43], [58]. Green (or sometimes environmental) sustainability aims to improve the current proceses which will preserve the environment as pristine as naturally possible. It is about the alignment of sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, transportation and remanufacturing/recycling processes with the goal of reducing a company’s carbon footprint. Environmental sustainability demands that society designs activities to meet human needs while indefinitely preserving the life support systems of the planet. Sustainability requires that human activity only use natural resources at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. Sustainable development is intertwined with the concept of carrying capacity. This entails sustainable usage of water, energy and sustainable material supplies (e.g. harvesting wood from forest at a rate that maintains the biomass and biodiversity). A comprehensive monitoring and evaluation at the enterprise level would provide an opportunity for individual companies to determine the level of implementation of the green strategy. Based on this information, benchmarking for example of individual companies within a holding structure could be done, or monitoring over a longer period of time. 1.7 Sustainable supply chain management Sustainability is practiced globally as a comprehensive strategy for improving the sustainability performance of the manufacturing industry. Although there exists a divergence of definitions of sustainability, these differences are not too great. Most definitions of sustainability incorporate a consideration of environmental, economic and social dimensions (see Figure 1.12): • Sustainability is a wise balance among economic development, environmental stewardship and social equity [54]. • Sustainability includes equal weightings for economic stability, ecological compatibility and social equilibrium [25]. • Sustainability is the complete plan of ethical action for an organisation which is attempting to transform itself into something sustainable, i.e. to become pro-environmental, pro-social and traditionally pro-economic [38].

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