Essay Example on World Commission on Environment and Development

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One of the most quoted and well structured as well as précised definition of sustainability is that of the Brundtland Commission World Commission on Environment and Development 1987 p 8 development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs In the past people have worked on some separate topics of supply chain management which were dealing with social issues and environmental issues that includes development of environmental logistics strategies Murphy et al 1996 environmental purchasing Min and Galle 1997 carrier selection for and the transportation of hazardous materials Kalevela and Radwan 1988 Sharp et al 1991 improvement of fuel efficiency and emissions reduction from transportation equipment McKinnon et al 1993 Stock 1978 safety in motor carrier rail and airline industries Cantor et al 2006 Weener and Wheeler 1992 Crum et al 1995 diversity hiring and promotion issues concerning logistics personnel Lynagh et al 1996 and diversity of for hire motor carriers Corsi et al 1982 and other industrial suppliers Carter et al 1999 Process of production is often widened on a global level When we see different stages of production the customers suppliers and focal companies are connected by some information material and financial capital flows and in line with the value of product comes the social burden and environmental burden S A Seuring M Müller 2008

Researchers suggest that for the environmental and social performance of these suppliers the focal companies in a supply chain should be held responsible S A Seuring M Müller 2008 Focal companies are defined as those companies which rule or govern the supply chain they provide direct contact to customers and they design the product or service which has to be offered S A Seuring M Müller 2008 R B Handfield E L Nichols 1999 P Schary T Skjøtt Larsen 2001 For the brand owning companies this is more important because of the pressure they have to deal with from stakeholders and some non governmental organizations like NGO s C R Carter M M Jennings 2002 G Kovács 2004 Such companies are expected to consider problem related to environment and social problems which exist in their entire supply line for example in recent years in the apparel industry some big brands like Nike Disney Adidas Benetton have to face the charges of some unethical practices or inhumane working condition during the production of their clothing and they have been blamed to contaminate the local environment by using certain chemicals S A Seuring M Müller 2008 J J Graafland 2002 L Preuss 2001 S Seuring 2001 Keeping these facts in mind different levels of management including operational purchasing and supply chain managers have decided to integrate these environmental and social issues and they have adopted certain standards like ISO 14001 in which all safety measures related to social and environmental aspects are embedded S A Seuring M Müller 2008 P Beske J Koplin S Seuring 2008 Supply chain is a set of activities which are related with the flow and transformation of raw material into finished goods or from the stage of extraction of raw material to the end product for consumer including the the information that has been shared during this process is called supply chain management S A Seuring M Müller 2008 Flow of information and material is always two way from customer to company and company to customer S A Seuring M Müller 2008 Supply chain management SCM is the integration of these activities through improved supply chain relationships to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage S A Seuring M Müller 2008 R B Handfield E L Nichols 1999

To summarise the different elements of supply chain management and elements of supply chain management the overall goal of Sustainable Supply Chain Management is to make a more sustainable supply chain with an end objective of creating a true sustainable chain Pagell and Wu 2009 Reffering to a sustainable supply chain means that we are referring to an outcome for that supply chain Dorli Harms 2011 as cited in Pagell and Wu 2009 Academic literature is not widely available for the definition of sustainable innovation although this term has been used frequently in the last decade but still this concept is called rather new F Boons et al 2013 Researchers like C Hermosilla 2010 define innovation with relation to ecological sustainability for example eco innovation and environmental innovation For instance C Hermosillaet al 2010 1075 introduced their own definition of eco innovation innovation that improves environmental performance But some other researchers define sustainable innovation as the essential progress providers regarding economic social and ecological concerns meaning that they don t talk about a single aspect of ecology but they involve other dynamics as well Arnold and Barth 2012 Arnold and Hockerts 2011 This is because of the different preferences of a set of stakeholders which are heterogeneous in nature and this innovation is made complex by the competition of sustainable innovation Alkemade and Suurs 2012 So the researchers in sustainable innovation subject differentiate innovation in two categories incremental innovation and radical innovation and radical innovation and this depends on firm either it wants to develop sustainable innovation through incremental possessive change or through radical Disruptive changes C Hermosilla et al 2010

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