Sustainability Meets Humanitarian Logistics

Dear Colleagues,

In 1987, the United Nations Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as “meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Although this term usually refers to natural resources, lately, it has been oriented not merely an environmental worry but also on a social and economic development concern. Sustainability is an integrated approach that can be found in several contexts where environmental, social, and economic dimensions must be involved in a simultaneous and balanced way to find lasting prosperity.

In this special issue, we aim to bring together recent contributions addressing the different ways researchers define and integrate sustainability in the challenging field of humanitarian logistics and, more precisely, how sustainable oriented objectives are explicitly considered in their research. In fact, although humanitarian logistics main purpose is to reduce casualties and to reduce suffering of the populations affected by natural or man-made situations, 50% of the papers on relief distribution reviewed recently by Anaya-Arenas, Renaud, and Ruiz (2014) focus on cost minimization. Nonetheless, a shift on the objectives towards demand satisfaction and equity, and particularly fairness, have been observed in the last five years. In addition, humanitarian logistics implies more often than not the participation of several stakeholders having their own, sometimes divergent, goals. We encourage researchers addressing collaboration, synchronization, or any aspect related to participatory planning in the context of humanitarian logistics to submit their works to this special issue. From a methodological standpoint, the fact that sustainability implies the simultaneous consideration of economic, environmental and social dimensions in a balanced way, suggests that multi-criteria decision-making (MCMD) techniques would be among the most, if not the most, popular approaches to tackle simultaneously the three sustainability pillars. This special issue is therefore open to MCMD based research, but it welcomes alternative ideas or methods that might broaden current approaches.

The relevance of this special issue lies in the rapid spread of sustainability concept that is provoking a deep transformation in the manner we design, plan, and operate organizations. Important questions are raised, such as:

• Is – or should be – the field of humanitarian logistics concerned by sustainability?
• How sustainability is defined – or should be redefined – to fit the specificities of humanitarian logistics?
• How the sustainable aim fits the ephemeral nature of some humanitarian interventions?
• Does the sustainability concept apply to humanitarian interventions, to humanitarian organizations, or both?
• How the different stakeholders’ goals can be adequately integrated and prioritized?

We expect this special issue to consolidate the most recent knowledge on the field; to promote and facilitate works filling the gap between practical needs and research; to suggest specific future research avenues; and last but not the least, to inspire researchers to engage in this important and promising research field.

Prof. Angel Ruiz
Dr. Jaime Mora-Vargas
Dr. Fabiola Regis-Hernández
Guest Editors

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• multi-criteria decision-making
• sustainability
• humanitarian logistics
• optimization
• supply chain