A sustainable green supply chain for globally integrated networks

Abstract

This study presents a sustainable supply chain platform in a globally integrated supply chain network. It asserts that this environmentally driven initiative has been launched in complex social environments and is inspired by the need for legitimacy, as well as social and economic fitness in a wider social structure. It proposes the importance of research-based improvements in the sustainable logistics field, and aims to bring about a better understanding of and provide a stronger scientific basis for the logistics industry in the sustainable supply chain platform, to allow them to be able to restructure their supply chain architecture. A systems-based approach allows emissions to be controlled across each stage of a global supply chain, by restructuring the existing complex globally integrated supply chain and performing lifecycle assessment in the drive for productivity. Following the preliminary analyses, this chapter offers some suggestions to help manufacturers and logistics service providers to restructure their supply chain strategies. © 2010 Springer-Verlag London.