Traceability for sustainability – literature review and conceptual framework

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to examine how companies enact traceability in their global supply chains (SCs) to achieve sustainability goals and how this so-called traceability for sustainability (TfS) can contribute to (sustainable) supply chain management ([S]SCM). For this, the paper focuses on the paramount example of the apparel industry. Design/methodology/approach This study presents an integrative and systematic literature review of 89 peer-reviewed journal articles on the confluence of traceability and sustainability in global apparel SCs. It comprises content analysis and abductive category-building based on previous literature. Findings A conceptual framework emerges to describe TfS as an evolving cycle, comprising three dimensions: governance, collaboration and tracking and tracing. Resources and capabilities literature set the foundations for conceiving TfS as a distinctive meta-capability construct. Hence, besides being associated to increased performance, risk management and SC process transformation, TfS ultimately blurs boundaries and integrates non-traditional SC actors into the same ecosystem with important implications for sustainability and (S)SCM. This study refers to the industrial upgrading potential of global SCs to explain how leveraging enabling technologies for TfS may help to improve the triple-bottom-line (TBL) performance of the actors in the broad ecosystem while reducing the risks associated to those technologies. Thus, TfS can contribute to (S)SCM and to TBL sustainability within and beyond SC boundaries. Originality/value This study conceptually frames (S)SCM exploring TfS as a meta-capability and contributes to the underexplored question of how to achieve sustainability in global SCs.

Transparency for Multi-Tier Sustainable Supply Chain Management: A Case Study of a Multi-tier Transparency Approach for SSCM in the Automotive Industry

“…The primary problem that becomes apparent for companies trying to engage in MT-SSCM is knowing who their sub-suppliers are, where the raw materials originate and the sustainability conditions throughout the SC [83]. At present, the ability to trace raw materials for MT-SSCM and have total SC visibility is a utopia [24,43]. While academic and theoretical progress has been made on MT-SSCM, what is often missing is the recognition that SC transparency is a key pre-requisite before MT-SSCM can occur [32].…”

“…The article continues with a review of the extant literature on SSCM, MT-SSCM, and transparency/traceability in the supply chain context, leading to the recently proposed framework for achieving MT-SSCM: Traceability for Sustainability [24]. Building on arguments presented in the literature review, the authors propose to deviate slightly from the term traceability (preferred as the overarching category by Garcia-Torres et al), suggesting that transparency for sustainability is the optimal concept.…”

“…Following a qualitative abductive logic, we begin with the TfS framework and undertake a case study of a project in which an FC sets to gain transparency in a cobalt supply chain. By providing learning from a particularly critical, complex and long supply chain, this article will demonstrate the challenges to realising MT-SC-transparency, contribute to a deepened understanding of how such a process can be operationalised in an MT-SC, in order to work towards the TfS envisioned by Garcia-Torres et al [24]. Our qualitative research seeks to understand how the framework might look when applied in detail to a concrete case (a project to attain MT-SC transparency), thus our choice of a case study research approach (Eisenhardt, 1989;1991).…”

“…Just as Seuring and Beske [18] and Pagell and Shevkchenko [10] demonstrated the need for normalising sustainability In answering these questions, this research aims to contribute to the research on how MT-SSCM is instigated, practised and improved. To achieve this, the current article expands on a part of the TfS framework proposed by Garcia-Torres et al [24] and analyses how transparency can be achieved as a necessary pre-condition for traceability for sustainability in multi-tier supply chains (MT-SCs). Following a qualitative abductive logic, we begin with the TfS framework and undertake a case study of a project in which an FC sets to gain transparency in a cobalt supply chain.…”

Sustainability Benefits of RFID Technology in the Apparel Industry

“…RFID has been shown to improve the economic efficiency of operations; however, it has not been translated before to social and environmental benefits. Representative features of the apparel industry include "global scope, high volume, dynamism, fierce competition, and intensive resource use" [12]. These factors generate high environmental risks where natural resources get depleted due to material production and the air and water gets polluted from the harvesting and manufacturing processes of the material.…”