Why research in sustainable SCM should have no future - Review: what don't we know about SSCM?

7 important questions on Why research in sustainable SCM should have no future - Review: what don't we know about SSCM?

To reach the point of no longer separating SCM from sustainable SCM research, researchers need to do what?

Researchers need to address four critical/related issues.

What are the four critical issues of sustainable SCM?

  1. Harm elimination is no harm reduction
  2. A limited stakeholder view: the primacy of profits
  3. A focus on the familiar
  4. Measuring the supply chain impacts

What is a problem with the adoption of lean practices in sustainable SCM?

Harm reduction is not harm elimination. For example, reduction in harm is often coming from a supply chain whose products/services would use resources faster than its rate of replacement, even if there were no emissions during production; therefore, an extremely lean automobile supply chain that creates no environmental harm in the production is still creating a product that uses a significant amount of non-renewable resources in its lifecycle. 
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What does the current research in sustainable SCM focused on making unsustainable supply chains and business models less sustainable create?

It creates limited insight into how an economically viable supply chain that at a minimum creates no harm and may even have positive impacts on social and environmental systems.

What does future research have to recognise that currently has a limited stakeholder view in sustainable SCM?

That claims of stakeholders without an economic stake in the chain should be treated as equally valid to economic claims, and start to focus on ways to deal with situations where synergies cannot be created.

What is meant by "firms should look at trade-offs, not synergies" in sustainable SCM?

By focusing only on those practices that are economically beneficial, a supply chain would not be able to respond to all its negative social or environmental impacts and hence not be sustainable; therefore, the adoption of non-synergistic practices is sometimes required.

Sustainability is a fundamentally new way of thinking about supply chain management. What does it require?

Radical innovation: required a change in both the what and how to provide value and in supply chain business models.

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