A First Step Towards Profitable and Sustainable Reverse Logistics : A qualitative study of how companies can balance sustainability priorities in their Reverse Logistic practices

A rapid change in the market context and a growing concern regarding the environment with initiatives such as Agenda 2030 and Paris Agreement is what organisations are facing today. Further, macro-factors including war, inflation and energy crisis contribute to additional concerns in the market. These conclude with a hard-to-navigate landscape for retail companies. Taking the current trend of increasing returns into consideration, this creates an expectation for organisations to manage the returns with sustainability in mind, both economic and environmental. Therefore, a specific Reverse Logistics system is crucial.To address the identified research gap the purpose of this study is to analyse how companies within the speciality retail sector can have a sustainable and effective Reverse Logistics system and if there are different opportunities in the Swedish market. To address the research question, the study is conducted as a qualitative study with an inductive approach and the interviews were held with relevant managers within the speciality retail sector, with expertise in Reverse Logistics and Sustainability.The data collected from semi-structured interviews were analysed by using thematic analysis and led us to our findings. This resulted in four main themes (1) Sustainability, (2) Reverse Logistics, (3) Motivators for Reverse Logistics and (4) Challenges with Reverse Logistic which were discussed both separately and in correlations with each other in order to arrive at the answer to our research question.The results showed that companies within the speciality retail sector have a Reverse Logistics system implemented but face challenges in how to manage it efficiently and be profitable. Their main challenges were identified as Economic and Resource Demanding, and how to remain environmentally sustainable. In contrast to the challenges, motivators for Reverse Logistics were identified. The major motivators found were Stakeholders, mostly referred to as customers, Economic opportunities and Environmental benefits, and how they can remain profitable. Further, we developed an adjusted version of the theoretical model for how Reverse Logistics could be managed from our empirical findings.Lastly, our findings indicate that the most sustainable option in terms of Economy and Environment is for the organisations to work with the prevention of returns, both with customer awareness and supporting in-store returns. Additionally, a finding shown from the research is that in order to have Economic sustainability, Environmental sustainability needs to be integrated as well as this affects the stakeholders