Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
6.8
3.3
Journals
Sustainability
Special Issues
Sustainable Perspectives: Green Operations Management and Supply Chain
sustainability-logo
Submit to Sustainability Review for Sustainability Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

► Journal Menu

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser
share announcement

Sustainable Perspectives: Green Operations Management and Supply Chain

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 13627

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Al Ansari

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Marketing Faculty, Seattle University, Seattle, WA, USA
Interests: sustainability in perations; just-in-time purchasing; supplier selection; lean manufacturing
Prof. Dr. Batoul Modarress Fathi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Executive Consultant- Quality Technology Inc., Overland Park, KS, USA
Interests: sustainability; supply chain; maritime transportation; logistics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

1) Introduction, including scientific background and highlighting the importance of this research area.

Since the first Industrial Revolution, developed nations marched in step with the rhythm of mechanization to mass production, mass customization, and automation driven by profit inducements. At the same time, humanitarians and environmentalists deduced that life on Earth is suffering from irreversible damages. According to the Global Footprint Network, humanity has depleted the Earth's capital, and the resource demand is equivalent to that of more than 1.7 Earths.

In this setting, the fascinating alternative for civilization to sustain is to make humans a multi-planetary species. However, flights launched by Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX with exorbitant price tags are symbols of inequality as they are only available to thrill-seeking elites.

With less than a decade left to deliver the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the world’s population continues to grapple with the crisis of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. The virus has spread worldwide, and has reversed decades of human development in the United Nations’ signatory member states. These unprecedented issues have accelerated the need to update and upgrade supply chains in an increasingly green world as the public are confronted by unprecedented supply chain disruption and exorbitant prices.

Green operations and supply chain incorporate environmental concerns, including product design, material sourcing and selection, manufacturing, delivery of final products, and managing products’ end-of-life.

We welcome submissions within the following scope for this Special Issue of Sustainability: 

  • The potential value creation and contributions of the green transformation to manufacturing operations and supply chains (environmental cost/benefit analysis);
  • Challenges of green transformation to manufacturing operations and supply chains (e.g., environmental, social, inter-functional organization, and governance (ESG) practices).
  • Expectations from human resources, including management with green transformation (e.g., the necessary digital skills).
  • Risks of the green transformation to manufacturing operations and supply chains (e.g., wars, politics, business laws, regulations, and crises).
  • Energy monitoring and analysis.
  • Barriers to green operations and supply chain (e.g., barriers in production, transportation, packaging, storage, disposal, and end-of-product life cycle management).
  • Using sustainable criteria for supplier selection in green operations and supply chain.
  • The role of academic institutions in green operations and supply chain.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Al Ansari
Prof. Dr. Batoul Modarress Modarress Fathi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • green transformation
  • manufacturing operations
  • supply chain

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (6 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

23 pages, 1811 KiB  
Article
Ordering Decisions with an Unreliable Supplier under the Carbon Cap-and-Trade System
by Yuheng Ren, Wenliang Bian, Haicheng Li and Xiaxia Ma
Sustainability 2023, 15(24), 16595; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152416595 - 6 Dec 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 774
Abstract
The global focus on carbon reduction has intensified, prompting numerous high-energy-consuming enterprises to venture into the carbon cap-and-trade system. However, in recent years, the emergence of destabilizing factors has introduced disruptions to supply chains. The study addresses the two-stage ordering problem for a [...] Read more.
The global focus on carbon reduction has intensified, prompting numerous high-energy-consuming enterprises to venture into the carbon cap-and-trade system. However, in recent years, the emergence of destabilizing factors has introduced disruptions to supply chains. The study addresses the two-stage ordering problem for a manufacturer under the carbon cap-and-trade system. In the first stage, the manufacturer engages in green investments and places orders with both an unreliable and a reliable supplier. After updating demand forecast information in the second stage, orders are placed with the backup supplier, and carbon allowances are settled at the end of the period. Under these conditions, three supply scenarios of the unreliable supplier are considered: time-varying supply with imperfect demand updates, all-or-nothing supply with imperfect demand updates, and time-varying supply with perfect demand updates. Optimal ordering decisions are provided for each scenario. We find that when demand updates are imperfect, the manufacturer will invariably engage with the unreliable supplier. However, when demand updates are perfect, the manufacturer may choose to forgo the unreliable supplier. Next, we analyze the influence of carbon trading prices on ordering decisions in these scenarios. We find that when the probability of disruption is substantial, dual sourcing must exist in the first stage under the all-or-nothing supply. Finally, we conduct numerical analysis by utilizing parameters, such as carbon trading prices, as referenced in the existing literature. Through numerical analysis, we find that opting for the all-or-nothing supplier becomes economically advantageous for the manufacturer when the backup supplier is profitable. Conversely, when the backup supplier is not profitable, the manufacturer tends to opt for the unreliable supplier with time-varying supply. Moreover, optimal profit for the manufacturer is not achieved when demand updates are perfect. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Perspectives: Green Operations Management and Supply Chain)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

19 pages, 1379 KiB  
Article
Examining Sustainability Alignment of Supplier Selection Criteria during Industrial Revolutions
by Batoul Modarress-Fathi, Al Ansari and Alexander Ansari
Sustainability 2023, 15(22), 15930; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152215930 - 14 Nov 2023
Viewed by 1038
Abstract
Suppliers have evolved alongside industrial revolutions induced by their selection criteria for over two centuries. While sustainability has remained a pledge in their inter-creditor agreements, the claims of 11,000 scientists regarding the Earth’s colossal pollution and the calls of 196 nations to reach [...] Read more.
Suppliers have evolved alongside industrial revolutions induced by their selection criteria for over two centuries. While sustainability has remained a pledge in their inter-creditor agreements, the claims of 11,000 scientists regarding the Earth’s colossal pollution and the calls of 196 nations to reach net-zero emissions by 2030 have accentuated concerns regarding the sustainability of supply selection criteria. Twenty supply selection criteria and seventy associated indicators were identified in industrial revolutions. The identified criteria and indicators were forwarded to 250 volunteers with expertise in the supply chain across six industries. Maintaining confidentiality, the volunteers were first requested to rank the criteria and related indicators concerning the three pillars of sustainability, the environmental, economic, and social, using The second request was to mark the percentage of influence of economic criteria and the related indicators on environmental and social sustainability. The third request was to state their professional views on sustainability during the industrial revolutions. Statistical analyses of the responses suggested that the identified supplier selection criteria were not equally driven by economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Supply chain professionals supported the statistical analysis and confirmed that the economic indicators dominating the selection of suppliers were significantly higher than the environmental and social criteria. They also confirmed that economic indicators have negatively impacted environmental and social sustainability during industrial revolutions. They recommended that transitioning into sustainable supply chains requires shifting emphasis from economic to environmental and social sustainability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Perspectives: Green Operations Management and Supply Chain)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

22 pages, 968 KiB  
Article
Examining Firms’ Sustainability Frontier: Efficiency in Reaching the Triple Bottom Line
by Yiming Zhuang, Meltem Denizel and Frank Montabon
Sustainability 2023, 15(11), 8871; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15118871 - 31 May 2023
Viewed by 1680
Abstract
Sustainability has become a significant concern worldwide in recent decades. There seems to be implicit competition among firms for better sustainability performance. Like any other firm activity, sustainability undertakings require resources and their efficient use to achieve the desired performance. Firms may hesitate [...] Read more.
Sustainability has become a significant concern worldwide in recent decades. There seems to be implicit competition among firms for better sustainability performance. Like any other firm activity, sustainability undertakings require resources and their efficient use to achieve the desired performance. Firms may hesitate to undertake sustainability initiatives due to the underlying costs, leading to the question of how efficient they are in their sustainability practices. Relying on data from CSRHub and COMPUSTAT, we employed data envelopment analysis to evaluate the sustainability efficiency of 1141 large U.S. manufacturing firms from 2009 to 2018. We measured the sustainability efficiency of each firm relative to those on the efficient frontier for all the firms in our sample and also separately for each industry. The analysis results indicate that firms’ sustainability efficiency varies across years and industries. Furthermore, we show a quadratic relationship between sustainability performance and sustainability efficiency. This finding implies a process that begins with firms struggling to streamline their sustainability efforts and decreasing their efficiency as sustainability performance increases. Sustainability efficiency starts increasing only after a certain threshold is reached in sustainability performance. Our findings offer valuable insights for firms and stakeholders in their efforts to achieve desired levels of sustainability efficiency. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Perspectives: Green Operations Management and Supply Chain)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 1941 KiB  
Article
Green Commercial Aviation Supply Chain—A European Path to Environmental Sustainability
by Batoul Modarress Fathi, Al Ansari and Alexander Ansari
Sustainability 2023, 15(8), 6574; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086574 - 13 Apr 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4355
Abstract
The last century has witnessed European commercial aviation flourishing at the cost of environmental degradation by boosting greenhouse gas and CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. However, the outcry for net-zero emissions compels the sector’s supply chain to a minimum 55% reduction of [...] Read more.
The last century has witnessed European commercial aviation flourishing at the cost of environmental degradation by boosting greenhouse gas and CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. However, the outcry for net-zero emissions compels the sector’s supply chain to a minimum 55% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions below the 1990 level by 2030 and zero CO2 emissions by 2050. This study examines a European environmental sustainability path toward a green commercial aviation supply chain. Driven by literature and a review of related documents, two propositions were advanced to orient perspectives on the relationship between pollution and the commercial aviation supply chain and actions being taken toward environmental sustainability. In semi-structured interviews, seventeen aerospace associates endorsed pollution sources in the commercial aviation supply chain during the four stages of the aircraft life cycle, including extracting the raw materials, manufacturing, ground and flight operations, and end-of-service. They recommended transitioning into green commercial aviation through the widespread deployment of innovative technologies, from modifying airframes to changing aviation fuel, utilizing alternative propulsion systems, adopting circular manufacturing, and improving air traffic management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Perspectives: Green Operations Management and Supply Chain)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

21 pages, 1654 KiB  
Article
A Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model Combining DANP with VIKOR for Sustainable Supplier Selection in Electronics Industry
by Benedictus Rahardjo, Fu-Kwun Wang, Shih-Che Lo and Jia-Hong Chou
Sustainability 2023, 15(5), 4588; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054588 - 3 Mar 2023
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2269
Abstract
Sustainability in operations and supply chains is becoming more popular among academics and practitioners through Sustainable Supplier Selection (SSS). In addition to balancing economic, social, and environmental factors, the awareness of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030 has affected the selection of [...] Read more.
Sustainability in operations and supply chains is becoming more popular among academics and practitioners through Sustainable Supplier Selection (SSS). In addition to balancing economic, social, and environmental factors, the awareness of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030 has affected the selection of long-term suppliers, ensuring green operations and sustainable supply chains. The criteria for SSS have multiple dimensions and are interdependent; this mimics the real-world scenario rather than assuming independently from an analytic hierarchy process. We use the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model, combining DEMATEL-based on ANP (called DANP) with VIKOR, to solve the SSS problem. The DANP method is used to model and assess the interdependent relationships between criteria. Then, ranking the available alternatives and selecting the best one can be accomplished using the VIKOR method. We consider the electronic manufacturing industry in Taiwan as an empirical case. This study, in addition to selecting the best sustainable supplier, demonstrates the use of influential network relationship maps to analyze and improve the gaps in each dimension and criterion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Perspectives: Green Operations Management and Supply Chain)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

24 pages, 1705 KiB  
Article
Incorporating Vehicle-Routing Problems into a Closed-Loop Supply Chain Network Using a Mixed-Integer Linear-Programming Model
by Ali Pedram, Shahryar Sorooshian, Freselam Mulubrhan and Afshin Abbaspour
Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 2967; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15042967 - 6 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2383
Abstract
In recent years, there has been a tremendous increase in environmental awareness, due to concerns about sustainability. Designing an efficient supply chain network that fulfills the expectation of both business owners and customers and, at the same time, pays attention to environmental protection [...] Read more.
In recent years, there has been a tremendous increase in environmental awareness, due to concerns about sustainability. Designing an efficient supply chain network that fulfills the expectation of both business owners and customers and, at the same time, pays attention to environmental protection is becoming a trend in the commercial world. This study proposes a theoretical model incorporating vehicle routing problems (VRPs) into the typical CLSC (closed-loop supply chain) network architecture. This combination assists all operators to act more efficiently in terms of environmental protection and profitability. A mixed-integer-linear-programming model for CLSC network design with fuzzy and random uncertain data is developed to achieve the goals. The parameters of the CLSC network are also programmed using hybrid fuzzy-stochastic mathematical programming. The model is for a single product and a single timeframe. Several numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the validity of the proposed mixed-integer-linear-programming (MILP) model. This study also investigated probabilistic possibilities for recourse variables with a trapezoidal fuzzy number using a problem size of four cases. The result indicates that the model performed well in the numerical test, suggesting it can help the operation to be more profitable if this model is implemented in their daily routines. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Perspectives: Green Operations Management and Supply Chain)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-6
Back to TopTop