Sustainable reverse logistics scorecards for the performance measurement of informal e-waste businesses

Abstract

Many countries depend on businesses in reverse chains to tackle the environmental pollution caused by the tremendous amount of e-waste. Furthermore, due to the domination of informal businesses in many developing countries, environmental rules are not considered during operation, and these violations tend to affect public health adversely. The government in these developing countries finds it difficult to manage and utilize e-waste due to insufficient resources properly. The existing performance measures are only appropriate for implementation in developed countries with the inability to assess informal e-waste businesses in developing countries. Therefore, to address this gap, this research proposes sustainable reverse logistics scorecards (SRLS) to identify informal e-waste businesses' performance. Data were obtained through in-depth interviews with eleven experts, questionnaire survey with one hundred eighty-six informal e-waste businesses in Indonesia using the snowball sampling method and by measurement identification using the statistical descriptive analysis such as mean, geometric mean, mode, and sign-test median including experts' confirmation. The results showed that there are twenty-two parameters from six perspectives namely financial, stakeholders' value, internal business processes, innovation and growth, environment, and social. These parameters can be used as a performance measurement following government regulation and adjusting the motivation, strategy, capability, and activities of informal e-waste businesses. They are also useful for practical assessment and decision purposes, such as process safety and economic impact evaluation of businesses with the ability to create job opportunities, satisfy employees, and provide persuasive incentives. The balance between environment, welfare, and e-waste management is realized through SRLS. We suggested that other researchers use these parameters to assess the performance of informal e-waste throughout Indonesia and the government considered these parameters to assess them before deciding to collaborate for handling e-waste problems.