Selection of environmental-conscious sourcing: an empirical investigation

Abstract

PurposeThe prime objective of this paper is to design a green supply chain management (GSCM) framework to evaluate the performance of environmental-conscious suppliers using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach.Design/methodology/approachThe literature survey reveals critical factors for implementing GSCM, adopted methodologies and the result obtained by several researchers. Data have been collected by conducting surveys and interviews with strategic-level personnel of five esteemed organizations in automobile manufacturing sectors. A GSCM framework is developed in which a mathematical tool entropy–the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) has been used to analyze the six parameters of automobile manufacturing unit. Initially, entropy is used to find the weights of each of the parameters that influence the decision matrix of the TOPSIS method. Secondly, the proposed GSCM framework ranks the supplier. Finally, sensitivity analysis of the model satisfies the GSCM framework and benchmarked the supplier.FindingsThe result shows that “Total CO2 emission” has an influential role for GSCM sustainability, and hence, firms should put more effort to reduce emissions to improve overall performance. Again, the parameters like investment in R&D and total waste generation may be ignored in the selection process. The result reveals the benchmarked supplier and its strategies for effective sourcing, which would have an indirect effect on organizations' overall sustainability.Research limitations/implicationsThis research entirely focuses on sustainability within supply chain considering economic, social and environmental paradigms. The mathematical modeling of the proposed work considers many influential parameters and provides an easy and comprehensive decision-making technique.Practical implicationsThe methods may be adopted by the industries for sustainable supply chain management. This study benchmarks the supplier organizations and explores the adopted policies by benchmarked organizations. Other organizations should follow the policies followed by benchmarked organization for enhancing environmental, social and economic performance. Organizations striving for sustainable development can adopt this framework for evaluation of supplier performance and benchmark with better accuracy.Originality/valueThe design of the GSCM framework explores both the qualitative and quantitative data based on environmental, social and economic parameters simultaneously in the evaluation of environmentally conscious suppliers. The research also investigates the constraints of the system to implement the GSCM in automobile manufacturing unit. Additionally, the sensitivity analysis justifies the benchmarked supplier and the adopted strategies to be followed by other manufacturing unit.

Strategic sourcing model for green supply chain management: an insight into automobile manufacturing units in India

“…6.2 Analysis of the results in the light of previous research findings First, the findings of this research suggest that total carbon dioxide emissions is the most influential parameter for GSS. This result is in line with the findings of the research conducted by Ghosh et al (2021) who argued that total CO 2 emissions play a vital role in the selection of environmentally conscious sourcing and emission control measures must be taken in order to implement GSCM effectively. The authors also proposed that following the strategy of a benchmark supplier aids in the reduction of emissions.…”

“…To make the decision-making process more accurate and roust, sensitivity analysis is done (Ghosh et al. , 2021).…”

“…The entropy method has been used by several researchers in various fields. Ghosh et al. (2021) used the entropy method to find the most influential parameters for an environmentally conscious SS process.…”

“…Basically, automobile manufacturing organizations produce a large amount of offensive pollutants, scrap and waste, all of which have a detrimental impact on the environment (Kulkarni et al. , 2014; Ghosh et al. , 2021).…”

Sustainable service supply chain management: from a systematic literature review to a conceptual framework for performance evaluation of service only supply chain

“…Sustainable procurement could be understood by the use of the following three theories – resource-based theory, institutional theory and theory of dynamic capability (Laosirihongthong et al , 2019). Procurements from ranked suppliers would help the organizations in improving their sustainability level (Ghosh et al , 2021) as well as operational and environmental performance (Yang et al , 2021). Therefore, it raises the need for the legal rules to be imposed on SSC to achieve sustainability.…”