Sustainability principles and practices: A supply chain perspective

As the result of human footprint on the planet, we already passed the safe operating boundary in four areas out of nine planetary boundaries. In 2015, the United Nations provided a list of 17 sustainable development goals for achieving a sustainable future that could better help sectors, industries, executives, and customers to understand how the economies can move from the traditional business models into the more sustainable ones. The global/local supply chains are experiencing more sustainability-related challenges in their businesses such as greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, land degradation, work health & safety, child labour, and diversity. Customer awareness, rules and regulations, unions, and non-profit organizations are more and more demanding the implementation of sustainability practices and measures in different industries. This interdisciplinary course highlights why the economies need to address sustainability at macro level. We also discuss why global supply chains need to do so and what are the challenges for multi-national companies with fragmented and extended supply networks to integrate environmental and social considerations into their strategies, decision-making, and operations.