1. Summary
Sustainable supply chains play a critical role in modern business operations, addressing environmental, social, and economic concerns while meeting the needs of current and future generations. These supply chains aim to minimize negative impacts on the environment, promote fair labor practices, and ensure economic viability throughout the supply chain. Assessing the sustainability of supply chains involves evaluating various factors such as carbon emissions, resource usage, labor conditions, and ethical sourcing practices. Methods for assessing sustainability may include life cycle assessments (LCA), carbon footprint analyses, social audits, and certifications such as Fair Trade or Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). By implementing robust assessment methods, organizations can identify areas for improvement, mitigate risks, and enhance the overall sustainability performance of their supply chains.
These areas of improvement should also be evaluated using the available sustainability assessment tools such LCA, social life cycle assessment (S-LCA), or life cycle costing (LCC) to provide support for the decision-making process as illustrated in Figure 1. Combining all of them would result in a holistic sustainability assessment house (Figure 1) that could be used to redesign the supply chain network for sustainability or redesign the product to be more sustainable.
Figure 1: Framework for life cycle sustainability assessment.
2. Objective
The seminar objective is to provide the student with knowledge regarding sustainable supply chains assessments and which tools are available for this purpose. To introduce several topics in sustainability within supply chains including environmental assessment, social assessment, and economic assessment that aid in providing sustainable network and product design. Providing such an analysis supports the decision-making process regarding several supply chain operations including locations, technologies, suppliers, distributions, materials, structure, and recycling.- Lehrende(r): Emad Alzubi
- Lehrende(r): Ahmed Kassem