Structure of a Net Positive Analysis for Supply Chain Social Impacts

Purpose Enhancing sustainability of the supply process of construction materials is challenging and requires accounting for a variety of environmental and social impacts on top of the traditional, mostly economic, impacts associated with a particular decision involved in the management of the supply chain. The economic, environmental, and social impacts associated with various components of a typical supply chain are highly sensitive to project and market specific conditions. The purpose of this paper is to provide decision makers with a methodology to account for the systematic trade-offs between economic, environmental, and social impacts of supply decisions. Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes a novel framework for sustainability assessment of construction material supply chain decisions by taking advantage of the information made available by customized building information models (BIM) and a number of different databases required for assessment of life cycle impacts. Findings The framework addresses the hierarchy of decisions in the material supply process, which consists of four levels including material type, source of supply, supply chain structure, and mode of transport. The application is illustrated using a case study. Practical implications The proposed framework provides users with a decision-making method to select the most sustainable material alternative available for a building component and, thus, may be of great value to different parties involved in design and construction of a building. The multi-dimensional approach in selection process based on various economic, environmental, and social indicators as well as the life cycle perspective implemented through the proposed methodology advocates the life cycle thinking and the triple bottom line approach in sustainability. The familiarity of the new generation of engineers, architects, and contractors with this approach and its applications is essential to achieve sustainability in construction. Originality/value A decision-making model for supply of materials is proposed by integrating the BIM-enabled life cycle assessment into supply chain and project constraints management. The integration is achieved through addition of a series of attributes to typical BIM. The framework is supplemented by a multi-attribute decision-making module based on the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution to account for the trade-offs between different economic and environmental impacts associated with the supply decisions.

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Simultaneous Consideration of Unit Manufacturing Processes and Supply Chain Activities for Reduction of Product Environmental and Social Impacts

Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering ◽

10.1115/1.4034481 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 138 (10) ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Ahmed J. Alsaffar ◽

Kamyar Raoufi ◽

Kyoung-Yun Kim ◽

Gül E. Okudan Kremer ◽

Karl R. Haapala

Keyword(s):

Supply Chain ◽

Energy Consumption ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Product Life Cycle ◽

Social Performance ◽

Freight Transport ◽

Social Impacts ◽

Manufacturing Processes ◽

Air Freight

Interest in assessing the sustainability performance of manufacturing processes and systems during product design is increasing. Prior work has investigated approaches for quantifying and reducing impacts across the product life cycle. Energy consumption and carbon footprint are frequently adopted and investigated environmental performance metrics. However, challenges persist in concurrent consideration of environmental, economic, and social impacts resulting from manufacturing processes and supply chain networks. Companies are striving to manage their manufacturing networks to improve environmental and social performance, in addition to economic performance. In particular, social responsibility has gained visibility as a conduit to competitive advantage. Thus, a framework is presented for improving environmental and social performance through simultaneous consideration of manufacturing processes and supply chain activities. The framework builds upon the unit manufacturing process modeling method and is demonstrated for production of bicycle pedal components. For the case examined, it is found that unit manufacturing processes account for 63–97% of supply chain carbon footprint when air freight transport is not used. When air freight transport is used for heavier components, transportation-related energy consumption accounts for 78–90% of supply chain carbon footprint. Similarly, from a social responsibility perspective, transportation-related activities account for 73–99% of supply chain injuries/illnesses, and days away from work when air freight transport is used. Manufacturing activities dominate the impacts on worker health when air freight transport is not used, leading to 59–99% of supply chain injuries/illnesses, and days away from work. These results reiterate that simultaneous consideration of environmental and social impacts of manufacturing and supply chain activities is needed to inform decision making in sustainable product manufacturing.

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Chapter 26: Supply Chain Social Impacts

Sustainability ◽

10.1515/9781547400423-026 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 261-270

Keyword(s):

Supply Chain ◽

Social Impacts

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Design of global sustainable supply chains

10.32469/10355/79572 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Dian Trihastuti

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Supply Chain ◽

Supply Chains ◽

Social Impact ◽

National Level ◽

Social Impacts ◽

Bottom Line ◽

Economic Dimension ◽

Sustainable Supply Chains ◽

Industrial Sectors

Increasing concern about the sustainability of supply chain operations is motivating companies and organizations to pursue strategies to reduce their contribution to global environmental and social negative impacts. While most papers in the field of sustainable supply chains have focused on economic and environmental performance at the firm level, recently some studies have considered the problem at the national level. However, there still exists a gap in quantitatively modeling social impacts, together with environmental and economic impacts, at the global level. To fill this gap, this research presents a multi-objective mathematical model for the design and planning of a supply chain, integrating the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social). In this research, the economic dimension of sustainability is addressed by considering the costs of the supply chain. Then MRIO, a national input-output table that describes the interdependencies between countries and economic sectors, is integrated with national environmental and social impacts to construct a triple bottom line (3BL) approach by industrial sectors. This model supports decision making by including both direct impacts, as well as indirect impacts, associated with upstream supply chain paths. This expands the range of impact considered in sustainable performance measurement both within and beyond the supply chain boundary. The integrated model can improve a company's ability to select supply chain partners based on a wider range of criteria, rather than being based on economics alone. A case study is conducted that considers three tiers of the transportation and equipment supply chain, which consists of six industrial sectors that are part of a larger system of fourteen industrial sectors operating across seventeen of the largest manufacturing countries in the world. The model is solved using a [epsilon]-constraint method; and the resulting Pareto optimal curves show the tradeoffs between the economic, environmental and social dimensions. The results reveal that indirect economic activities dominate when contributing to the environmental and social impact of the whole system. Expanding the scope of sustainability changes supply chain configuration decisions. Therefore, the primary result from this research is that firms and industry sectors need to change their focus from solely on economic aspects and include environmental and social aspects in supply chain decision making at operational and/or strategic levels of decisions.

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