What is Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Research in the last two decades has broadened venues from optimizing operations for a specific organization to critically examining the entire supply chain from the perspective of sustainability. The term sustainability has been used in varying meanings in different disciplines. With this chapter, the authors propose to bring together an interdisciplinary framework for sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). SSCM will be studied through literature surveys on the axes of both natural sciences, and social sciences, with an overarching goal of policy implications. Unlike quantitatively oriented natural sciences, integrating perspectives from the social sciences into a firm's overall sustainability strategy is still seen as a large undertaking by firms and can impede its sustainability. More practical and scholarly research needs to be conducted in this area, especially in terms of assessment and evaluation mechanisms.