A Sustainable Supply Chain Management Framework for Tour Operators

This paper presents a framework for tour operators to use in the implementation of supply chain management processes to improve sustainability performance. This is critical for a sector that historically has treated impacts as externalities and suppliers as commodities, and in which recent sustainability actions have been informal or eco-savings-led. This framework is part of the outcome from the EU-funded ‘Travelife’ programme, which is a joint initiative from European tour operator associations and sustainability standard-setting stakeholders. The framework has been designed as a series of industry-relevant steps: engaging the business and setting policies, integrating sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) into the business, assessing suppliers, setting priorities for actions and evaluating progress. The discussion here considers current tour operator approaches to sustainability, how the framework may be implemented by specialist and mass-market operators, and the challenges faced if these early steps are to lead to widespread, full implementation of SSCM initiatives.

The use of sustainable supply chain management practices allows companies to increase their revenues, while still balancing the triple bottom line of sustainability, which covers economic, environmental, and social concerns. Companies are looking to enhance their environmental performance by using sustainable supply chain management practices. The effect of supply chains on the environment cannot be understated. Numerous studies have been conducted investigating different facets of supply chain practices. However, research on sustainable supply chain management frameworks is fragmented, providing little or no guidance to practitioners. Thus, there is still a need for the provision of a comprehensive framework for optimizing the environmental impact of production and distribution processes. The overall objective of this study was to identify existing frameworks and propose a framework to guide practitioners and academics. A systematic literature review and meta-analytical methodology were applied. The analysis considered 92 articles. The study specifically used content analysis. A comprehensive sustainable supply chain management framework was developed from the eight practices that were derived and categorized. Emerging sustainable supply chain management practices such as green procurement, reverse logistics and cooperative with customers have been included in the framework. This sustainable supply chain management framework provides a guide to supply chain managers about which practices to focus on. Future research should study the barriers of implementing sustainable supply chain management practices.

Aims: This study addresses structural inconsistencies, application gaps, and verification issues in existing Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) frameworks by developing an enhanced model named the Integrated Sustainable Supply Chain Management Framework (ISSCMF). Study Design: Meta-analytical and design-based research. Place and Duration of Study: The study is based on a meta-analysis of 40 peer-reviewed SSCM articles published between 2012 and 2024. Methodology: A systematic review was conducted to examine limitations in the adaptation, validation, and implementation of SSCM frameworks. The analysis identified a lack of technological integration (e.g., IoT, data analytics), minimal use of structured methodologies, and domain-generic designs as critical shortcomings. To address these, the proposed ISSCMF incorporates structured methodologies such as DMAIC and Interpretive Structural Modeling, along with lean management and sustainability strategies, to create a more adaptable and efficient framework. Results: The findings indicate a significant lack of standardization and digital integration across existing frameworks. Most models performed inadequately in both manufacturing and service sectors due to their generic nature. ISSCMF responds to these issues by offering a technology-driven and structurally guided approach that enhances visibility, operational efficiency, and decision-making in supply chains. Conclusion: ISSCMF presents a robust, flexible alternative to traditional SSCM models by aligning environmental and technological elements. While the framework addresses key gaps, further empirical validation through case studies and expert feedback is required to confirm its broad applicability and effectiveness across diverse industry settings.

Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) emerges as a vital catalyst for inclusive growth and sustainable development, particularly in emerging economies where the manufacturing sector is central to economic progress. This study offers an in-depth analysis of the current research landscape on SSCM in the context of developing nations, outlining key theoretical frameworks and advocating for a solid conceptual foundation alongside a structured agenda for future research initiatives. This study employs a structured literature review technique to analyze 92 published articles indexed by Scopus from 2013 to 2024, revealing a burgeoning trend in the subject of global supply chains in developing nations. The analysis identifies key keywords such as “sustainable supply chain management,” “manufacturing industries,” “inclusive growth,” and “supply chain and sustainability,” and develops a conceptual model that elucidates how SSCM practices can be effectively integrated into manufacturing sectors to facilitate equitable growth and enhance business competitiveness. This work’s novelty lies in employing a systematic literature review to develop a holistic SSCM conceptual framework constructed upon six primary drivers: business model innovation, inclusive SSCM, corporate governance and leadership, technological and innovation capabilities, policy and regulatory environment, and circular feedback. This model addresses the ambiguity surrounding SSCM and inclusive growth, providing a robust foundation for future research and performance measurement. This study contributes to the field by providing a practical and theoretically grounded framework for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to implement impactful and effective SSCM initiatives in developing nations’ manufacturing sectors to promote inclusive growth and sustainable development.

In recent years, the interdisciplinary research of supply chains and sustainability has received extensive, yet gradual, attention; when compared to the rapid economic growth of the service industry, however, sustainable supply chain management has not been systematically explored yet. It has not only great theoretical significance, but also positive practical significance to provide a framework for the operation of a sustainable service supply chain from a sustainable development point of view. Based on the triple bottom line (TBL), we have analyzed related sustainable supply chain management research between 2006 and 2015, reviewed papers involving two or three bottom lines as well, and then introduced some classical frameworks for manufacturing supply chain management and service supply chain management. Afterward, by analyzing the differences between the manufacturing and service industries, we propose a framework of sustainable service supply chain management (SSSCM). Based on the impacts of sustainable development TBL on service supply chain participants, we have finally made a framework for sustainable operation facing triads service supply chain and proposed a future research agenda.

Purpose: This research aims to develop framework in the sustainable supply chain management (SCM) and to provide causal model of service industry specifically in higher education laboratory.Design/methodology/approach: The concepts of sustainable SCM in higher education laboratory were obtained by in-depth interviews and organized using Delphi method. While to identify the relationship between concepts, intuitionistic fuzzy cognitive map was utilized.Findings: As many as 15 concepts were identified to assess sustainability in the higher education laboratory SCM. These 15 concepts were classified into four categories according to its importance level, and there are two most important concepts: legal requirement and social responsibility. It is recommended for higher education laboratories to constantly obey national and regional government regulations and to satisfy current and prospective employers by providing work-ready graduates. This suggestion is expected to make higher education achieving its sustainability goals. Originality/value: This research is the first to develop a framework for sustainable SCM and to provide a causal model of the service industry especially in the education sector using intuitionistic fuzzy cognitive map.

Prior studies in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) fail to address collaboration in the supply chain and lean management in conjunction with economic benefits. Collaboration in the supply chain and lean management have to integrate into SSCM, which involves social, economic and environmental aspects. This study aims to establish a framework to understand the seafood industry in Vietnam and to enhance its performance. This framework proposes 5 aspects and 21 criteria, and these aspects involve qualitative information. Fuzzy set theory is applied to deal with the complexity of and uncertainty in the linguistic preferences. The fuzzy Delphi method is employed to test the reliability and validity attributes. A decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory is to assess the interrelationships among the attributes. Sensitivity analysis is adopted to address subjective robustness and objective perceptions. The results show that the aspects of collaboration in the supply chain and lean management drive economic benefits.

Management teams across the industry have made significant improvements in innovative supply chain infrastructure and processes, and their facilities and products have since been significantly improved in several instances. Therefore, each of these businesses has progressed well past simple marginal improvements. Nevertheless, it is essential to be able to function smoothly through deeper connections across the whole supply chain path. It is crucial to combine the market operations, resources, and expertise to accomplish the business performance across the different channel participants in a win-win situation. A total of 77 articles were actively reviewed, including 50 Scopus journals and 27 conference papers spanning from years of publication 2003 to 2020. The implementation of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is a fundamental enabler that may drive businesses to concentrate on addressing environmental challenges and administering social and economic gains. Implementation reveals that this principle helps enterprises to obtain improved production, reduced operational costs and lower inventories. Therefore, this research intends to explain the scope of sustainable supply chain activities and introduce a sustainable supply chain management framework that can improve Malaysian manufacturing industries.

Management teams across the industry have made significant improvements in innovative supply chain infrastructure and processes, and their facilities and products have since been significantly improved in several instances. Therefore, each of these businesses has progressed well past simple marginal improvements. Nevertheless, it is essential to be able to function smoothly through deeper connections across the whole supply chain path. It is crucial to combine the market operations, resources, and expertise to accomplish the business performance across the different channel participants in a win-win situation. A total of 77 articles were actively reviewed, including 50 Scopus journals and 27 conference papers spanning from years of publication 2003 to 2020. The implementation of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is a fundamental enabler that may drive businesses to concentrate on addressing environmental challenges and administering social and economic gains. Implementation reveals that this principle helps enterprises to obtain improved production, reduced operational costs and lower inventories. Therefore, this research intends to explain the scope of sustainable supply chain activities and introduce a sustainable supply chain management framework that can improve Malaysian manufacturing industries.

In modern times, sustainability in supply chain management is one of the keys to boosting the performance of the supply chain, and it enables the accomplishment of SSCM. It has been found in recent years that SSCM with assist of industry 4.0 applications, can benefit splendid productivity and efficiency in the supply chain. The numerous industry 4.0 applications that are involved are Artificial intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) Big Data Analytics (BDA), etc. Industry 4.0 with SSCM has gained a lot of interest from various authors and scholars across the world. Healthcare is one of the most critical sectors due to its importance in handling public health. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and other viruses (SARS and Ebola) have highlighted supply chain vulnerabilities that are further mitigated by their lean and globalized structures. Covid-19 underlined the need for supply chain visibility problems within the healthcare sector. When the need for medical supplies became urgent and global distribution was disrupted, companies faced the consequences of needing the technology, systems, and plans in place to correctly predict the onslaught. One report shows that about 94 percent of Fortune 1000 companies reported supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 global outbreak. Existing studies have discussed supply chain issues and the importance of AI in addressing these challenges. AI, like Industry 4.0 in the healthcare supply chain, is proving to be a game-changer. This paper aims to review and present the various aspects of SSCM and industry 4.0 applications to get a comprehensive literature review, which contains the analysis of multiple articles published from 2010-2020. In addition, the various challenges SSCM and industry 4.0 applications face are identified and discussed. Also, the impact of Industry 4.0 and sustainable practices brings together the healthcare supply chain. This study will help in getting a good understanding of the different industry 4.0 technologies that are important for setting up SSCM.

In recent years, environmental sustainability has stimulated enterprises worldwide to not only develop green and sustainable innovations but also to move toward green and sustainable supply chain management. This study integrated the ideas of green supply chain management (GSCM) and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) to define sustainable green supply chain management (SGSCM). Previous studies on GSCM/SSCM have contributed to research and practice, but few have explored the antecedents and consequences of GSCM/SSCM simultaneously. To address this research gap, we linked ecological modernization (EM) theory with SGSCM and sustainability performance to build a comprehensive research model. A total of 300 valid questionnaires were collected from electrical and electronics firms in Taiwan. The empirical results demonstrated that awareness of and pressure to engage in EM significantly positively affected SGSCM. Moreover, SGSCM significantly positively influenced sustainability performance (i.e. environmental, economic, and social performance). These findings should convince enterprises to actively promote SGSCM.

Understanding different aspects of sustainability, supply chain management (SCM), and decision making policies and relating them to performance measurement have been increasingly investigated in the last decade. In contrast to traditional SCM, which typically focuses on economic and financial business performance, sustainable SCM (SSCM) is characterized by explicit integration of environmental or social objectives which extend the economic dimension. For evaluating the sustainability of SCM as well as its greenness, we have to consider many and different index and criteria. One of the best tools for assessing the SSCM and GSCM is multicriteria decision making (MCDM) techniques. Many studies have been conducted in this area. Moreover, there are many uncertainty factors which may reduce the accuracy of MCDM result. Actually, Uncertainty is always a worsening factor in any decision support models, and dilutes the planned objectives of such models. For decreasing this uncertainty, fuzzy logic has been combined with MCDM approach. In fact, the main purpose of this chapter is considering the recent studies in area of SSCM and GSCM regarding to applications of fuzzy MCDM techniques. At the end of this chapter, based on out investigations in applications of fuzzy MCDM in SSCM and GSCM and regarding to research gaps, some suggestions for future studies have been proposed.

Supply chain management (SCM) increasingly needs to address both climate change mitigation and adaptation issues. While mitigation aims at sustainability by reducing the environmental impact of supply chains (SCs), adaptation entails improving resilience by increasing the ability to cope with climate-induced disruptions. Although sustainable SCM (SSCM) and resilient SCM (RSCM) are of increasing importance, there has been little effort to conceptually connect SSCM and RSCM. Our study explores the interconnections between both concepts by outlining theoretical elements and conducting a case study of four companies in the automotive SC based on company documents and interviews. Results show that SSCM is prioritised over RSCM. We furthermore highlight trade-offs and overlaps between the elements of SSCM and RSCM, which can be valuable for decision-makers, and introduce two enabling factors: transparency and diversity. We present a novel theoretical SCM framework that integrates both resilience and sustainability perspectives and make propositions for future research.

This paper discusses the antecedences and consequences of supply chain transparency (SCT) in sustainable agrarian supply chain management using partial least squares regression in an empirical sample with 131 supply chains with lead firms in German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). We investigated the effect of such structural antecedences as disintermediation, as well as the effect of governance tools similar to intensive communication, the integration of third parties in supply chain governance or the use of formal specifications on SCT. We found that all these antecedences are helpful in increasing SCT, while low developed countries of origin significantly reduced SCT. Then, the effects of SCT on the four main performance dimensions in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), i.e. social, ecological, and operational performance and long-term relationship success, were verified. Higher SCT improves all four dimensions significantly, while the effect on operational performance is lowest. Supply chain transparency turns out to be a prerequisite or a basic indicator of good management in SSCM in agri-food supply chains.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to give an up-to-date and structured insight into the literature published during the past decade on sustainable green supply chain management. It also suggests trends for future research based on the research issues identified through systematic and comprehensive analysis of previous studies in the area of green and sustainable supply chain management.Design/methodology/approachA state-of-the-art literature review is carried out by systematically collecting the existing literature over a period of 10 years (2005-2014) and categorizing it on the basis of attributes such as stages in supply chain, methodology and the industries/sectors under consideration. The classification of literature is also done according to the geographic region and year of publication.FindingsThere has been an increased interest among researchers and practitioners in the area of sustainable green supply chain management in the past decade. A need for achieving sustainability through adoption of greener practices has been universally felt, owing to an increasing environmental and ecological complexity. The review reveals that there exists a need to address behavioural issues like human resource management and supply chain partner relationship management. Moreover, reverse logistics, closed-loop supply chain management and waste management are areas that need special focus to achieve environmental sustainability.Research limitations/implicationsThe current review focuses on research trends in the past 10 years only. Moreover, papers from only good quality, peer-reviewed journals are considered in the study.Originality/valueMost of the previous reviews have either focused on specific issues related to sustainable supply chains only or green supply chains. The present study collectively takes into consideration papers both from green supply chain management as well as from sustainable supply chain literature that have a prime focus on environmental sustainability.