Due to rapid industrialization of agriculture, increased global food demand, and, increasing concerns related to food quality and safety, the concept of sustainability and supply chain transparency are becoming critically important to the agriculture and agri-food sector. The addition of sustainability performance objectives not only focuses on the effective utilization and consumption of natural resources, but also drives efforts to balance ecological, economic and societal aspects of agri-food businesses. The management of sustainability adds a new demand on business managers who often have small profits and receive stringent requirements from large powerful customers and retailers. In this paper, we recognize and analyze the key enablers in implementing sustainable initiatives for Agri-Food Supply Chains (A-FSCs). Ten important sustainability driven enablers were considered from a rigorous literature review and phase of expert consultation. The identified enablers were then analyzed using a combined Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM)-fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) based framework. The ISM approach enabled an appreciation of the contextual relationships among the enablers and to classify the enablers based on their driving and dependence potential. The fuzzy DEMATEL technique supported the determination of the influential and influenced enablers and also to categorize them into cause and effect groups. An empirical case study, drawn from a vegetable and fruit retail supply chain in India, is used to focus and test the applicability of the proposed research framework. The paper facilitates professional management practice and researchers to uncover and explore the enablers for the real execution of sustainability oriented initiatives in the agri-food business sector.
Purpose
Sustainability in supply chain is gaining attention in recent years due to environmental concern, enforced legislation, green issues, social responsibility, etc. Sustainable supply chain (SSC) has revolved around the various dimensions including economy, environment and societal factors since its inception. The purpose of this paper is to identify, prioritize and evaluate the indicators of SSC so that organizations can cultivate strategies to implement them on priority.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a methodology based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to prioritize the indicators of SSC. A numerical analysis of Indian automotive industry is presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed method. This proposed method considered fuzzy framework that can handle impreciseness and uncertainty. Sensitivity analysis is also performed to test the robustness of the proposed model.
Findings
Potential indicators are identified from relevant literature and validated by industry experts. This research finalizes the SSC indicators under three dimensions so that prioritization of identified indicators can be developed and the insights relationship of factors would be explored. The results of the study found that environmental and social dimensions of sustainability contribute more toward the sustainability.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to identify evaluation factors and other factors have not been identified and categorized. Evaluation is done by experts in this area so it is natural that views of decision makers may be subjective and vary with regard to industry type, priorities, resources, etc.
Practical implications
This study will help industry to identify, evaluate and prioritize factors for successful implementation of sustainability in their supply chain. Automotive companies could device these factors by applying the outcome of the study in their operations with higher priority to integrate sustainability in their supply chain.
Originality/value
These factors are identified to implement sustain ability into supply chain practices for automotive industry.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.