Abstract
Stakeholders are increasingly aware of the aspect of sustainability, and the fact that the circular economy facilitates the achievement of sustainable development goals. They place pressure on supply chains to become sustainable, and for this reason, third-party logistics (3PL) service providers, as specialized professionals, play a vital role in sustainable supply chain management. Although developments in technology in the era of Industry 4.0 have been effective at directing 3PLs along the path towards sustainability, integrated management of forward and reverse logistics systems in order to achieve a circular economy and to become sustainable remains a problem, even in developed countries. However, benchmarking and using the experiences of others can help to speed up this path at a minimal cost. An interval type-2 fuzzy super-slack-based measure network DEA was developed to make such benchmarking possible. Governance style, staff behavior, environmental management systems, and social elements are considered, alongside the principles of the circular economy, in order to compare the sustainability performance of 17 3PLs with respect to different aspects through the application of the developed DEA model. Proper benchmarking with respect to strategies and operations of the 3PLs that are recognized as efficient makes it possible for these 3PLs to overcome obstacles and progress at a lower cost. The results show that 3PLs do not have a comprehensive sustainability strategy that is coordinated with an overall vision of the total supply chain. An investigation into the development of a framework with multiple steps for the guidance of 3PLs, as well as the whole supply chain, towards sustainability in the Industry 4.0 era would be a fruitful next study.
Highlights
Based on the characteristics of components of data envelopment analysis (DEA) network mentioned in Table 2, values are gathered by the use of a questionnaire tool or official documents related to 17 most famous 3PLs service providers in food and health industry in Iran
The need of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry to follow world’s taste in food and health industry put some requirements on the management of the supply chain which logistics play an important role in it. Management of these 3PLs service providers are familiar with sustainable supply chain concept and circular principles
The knowledge of sustainability has got attention more than before and new technologies, tools and principles, such as the ones that are created during the Industry 4 era or by the circular economy concept, try to pave the path towards sustainability
Summary
In light of climate change and the COVID pandemic, the time to redesign the global economy in order to take robust steps towards sustainability has arrived. Brands could introduce their products as being sustainable purely on the basis that their packaging was recyclable. A single green feature cannot guarantee sustainability anymore [1]. Brands have to put consistent efforts into developing integrated strategies to make the whole supply chain sustainable [2,3]; only under such conditions will their stakeholders be convinced that the brand is committed to principles of sustainability, taking into account goals from all of the three dimensions of economic, environmental, and social matters, in addition to considering customer and stakeholder requirements [4,5]
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