Mapping and evaluation of approaches for supply chain environmental sustainability performance

Climate change, scarce natural resources, environmental regulations and demand for green products are some of the reasons that drive companies to consider environmental issues within management. Thus, a number of metrics has been developed to measure environmental performance. However, considering that competition has shifted from a company-versus-company form to a supply chain-versus-supply chain one, this topic cannot be addressed at a single company level anymore; a broad and holistic approach is needed, encompassing the whole supply chain. Although several studies have addressed the integration of environmental issues in supply chain management, a huge variety of metrics adopted to assess environmental performance in this field still exists. The aim of this work is to map and evaluate the existing approaches adopted to assess environmental sustainability performance along the whole supply chain, to discuss their strengths and limitations, as well as to introduce a multi-dimensional classification of the approaches. The classification will focus on the qualitative or quantitative nature of each approach, whether the design or the operational stage of the supply chain is addressed and whether other dimensions of sustainability are considered. This work can serve as a starting point for future studies that aim to integrate different approaches and proceed towards a standardisation in the assessment of environmental sustainability performance at a supply chain level