Title: Factoring environmental concerns in supply chain decision making

Authors: Maria E. Mayorga, Ravi Subramanian

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Clemson University, Freeman Hall Box 340920, Clemson, SC 29631, USA. ' College of Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, 800 West Peachtree Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30308, USA

Abstract: Recent regulatory and market-driven environmental pressures have fundamentally impacted decision making throughout supply chain systems, from raw material sourcing through processing, use and post-use – including the logistical activities in between. In this paper, we focus on three factors – legislative, economic and social – that have introduced environment-related complexities into supply chain decisions. For each of these factors, we provide examples of how the accompanying complexities can be characterised within decision models in the form of parameters, objectives or constraints. The contribution of this work lies in highlighting that conventional supply chain decision models have to be recast and solved differently to accommodate legislative, economic and social pressures related to the life-cycle environmental impacts of products or technologies.

Keywords: supply chain management; SCM; decision making; optimisation; supply chain decisions; legislation; economic pressures; legislative pressures; social pressures; environmental concerns; life-cycle impact; environmental impact; modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2010.033424

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2010 Vol.4 No.4, pp.469 - 487

Published online: 02 Jun 2010 *

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