Design of voluntary sustainability initiatives for supply chains

Abstract

AbstractVoluntary sustainability initiatives such as codes of conduct, certification schemes or environmental/social management systems have become the predominant applied approach for companies to specify proactive environmental or social obligations for supply chains. However, companies face two main challenges in the design of voluntary sustainability initiatives for their supply chains: Firstly, they recognize acceptance problems by stakeholders and supply chain partners as well as opposition by competing initiatives. Secondly, companies have realized significant resource demands to set up voluntary sustainability initiatives for supply chains and ask for more efficient solutions. The article at hand addresses these challenges by identifying the key and complementary resources that enable an effective (i.e., legitimized) as well as efficient design of voluntary sustainability initiatives for supply chains.