Abstract
PurposeThe implementation of reverse logistics (RL) as a strategic decision has gained significant attention amongst organisations due to its benefits to sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature to evaluate the performance of the RL process based on the three dimensions of sustainability including environmental, economic and social aspects.Design/methodology/approachContent analysis was adopted to collect and analyse the information.FindingsThe findings of this research show that most of the studies have focused on the performance evaluation of RL by considering the factors associated with economic and environmental performance. The social aspect of RL has been overlooked and requires investigation due to its contribution to positive social outcomes. In addition, no research has been conducted to assess the impact of each of the disposition options on the triple-bottom-line sustainability performance in one study.Originality/valueAlthough RL can make a significant contribution to improving the sustainability performance of firms, little research has been undertaken on exploring the relationship between RL and sustainability performance. This paper provides practitioners, academics and researchers a broad and complete view of the relationship between RL and sustainability performance with suggestion for future research.
Highlights
Sustainability has become a strategic intent for almost all businesses in the twenty-first century because of its contribution to profitability and growth and even the survival of a business (Corbett and Klassen, 2006; Kolk and Pinkse, 2008)
The keywords used for the search were “Reverse Logistics”, “Sustainability”, “Sustainability performance”, “Sustainable development” and “Performance evaluation”
This research illustrated that greening the inbound function as well as the production phase resulted in greening the outbound phase, which led to significant improvements in competitiveness and economic performance
Summary
Sustainability has become a strategic intent for almost all businesses in the twenty-first century because of its contribution to profitability and growth and even the survival of a business (Corbett and Klassen, 2006; Kolk and Pinkse, 2008). Sustainability in the supply chain has gained attention in recent years due to community concerns about the environment and organisations’ adoption of “green” strategies and recognition of their social responsibility; the need to respond to legislation aimed to reduce environmental impacts; and the realities of challenging market and economic competition (Agrawal et al, 2016b). Organisations can gain more profit and sustain their businesses over long term by adopting sustainability principles (Székely and Knirsch, 2005). Developing practices that increase sustainability are considered to be a critical goal for organisations due to their contribution to competitive advantage (Hart, 2005; Pfeffer, 2010). The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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