External And Internal Drivers For Sustainable Supply Chain Management Essay.

Regulatory Pressures

Different organizations are nowadays influenced by both the external and internal drivers to adopt the initiatives of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM). These drivers for SSCM can be stated as the influencers or motivators that can push or encourage organizations to implement sustainable initiatives throughout the process of supply chain management (Dubey et al. 2017). Different sorts of drivers are having an impact on the decisions of the supply chain to differing extents. For example, social media can influence the decision of purchasing, and shareholders can have more impact on the decision of logistics-related supply chain management. This part of the research will discuss External and Internal drivers as follows:

Regulatory Pressures: these are important considerations to drive organizations to take the sustainability initiative. International regulators, regional and national regulators, along with certification bodies, trade associations and others, exert pressure that can have an impact on the organization to adopt sustainable practices in the supply chain. This legislation can help in increasing sustainability-related awareness and can influence companies to incorporate sustainable practices (Bhardwaj, 2016).

Market Pressures: to have a competitive advantage and to develop technologies with sustainability, different companies, and their supply chains face pressure from market factors such as suppliers and shareholders. The market related external drivers commonly deal with the issues of sustainability concerning the business performance of the organization with the betterment of the relationship. A different category that falls under market pressure is such as shareholders, competitors, investors, financial institutions, and the brand image of the organization (monolith, 2021).

Societal Pressures: different non-profit organizations such as social groups and NGOs along with communication channels such as press, and media is also can help an organization to increase public awareness (Tay et al. 2015). This market pressure unites efforts to influence the organization and their supply chain to make improve their sustainability practices. The media can disseminate sustainability-related information and different NGOs are also having the ability to unite and mobilize other stakeholders on different sustainability issues.

Organizational culture: The poor corporate social responsibility and the deterioration of the environment have increased the demand and public awareness for sustainable services and products (Chatman and O’Reilly, 2016). The moral obligations of companies towards the community and society can meet the expectation of stakeholders which will influence the supply chain to achieve sustainability practices. The drivers related to organizational culture are health and safety issues, information dissemination, code of conduct of organization and innovativeness.

Corporate Strategy: the economical and operational related goals with SSCM can be gained by ensuring internal support within the organization and by setting a strategic target for sustainability targets (Govindan and Hasanagic, 2018). The corporate strategies are included with cost-related pressure, management commitment, operational performance, and the strategy of sustainability. The awareness of management towards sustainability is important for understanding the pressure from stakeholders. The intention and awareness of consumers about sustainability can encourage the organizations to adopt the corporate strategy.

Organizational resources: different organizations, due to the provision and scarcity of different natural, face pressure to undertake the initiatives of sustainability across the supply chain. The drivers related to organizational resources include organizational capabilities, human capital, physical capital and most importantly the workers (Wang et al. 2018).

Market Pressures

There are different benefits that an organization can have in terms of sustainability in the supply chain management and those benefits will be discussed as follows:

• Reduce the impact on the environment: people are having the misconception that when an organization goes for sustainability development for the betterment of the organization, they must spend a vast amount of money on the business. But the organizations themselves often do not know that sustainable development can lead to a big saving for the organization. The best way to manage the cost in terms of saving is reducing the waste and increasing the efficiency in the types of machinery and vehicles along with efficiency in the building can help an organization to see the return in terms of sustainability adoption (Johnsen, Howard and Miemczyk, 2018). Nike is one of the organizations which is changing their manufacturing process, reducing the costs of labour and trainers up to a certain percentage. Along with that, the organization is reducing the usage of materials which is helping the organization to have a higher margin in the supply chain (hips, 2021).
• Protect against reputational damage: the supply chain can impact the brand image of an organization as information about an organization is easily available on different internet sources. Therefore, protecting the reputation with sustainability development can enhance the business development. An organization can make sure that sustainability enhances a better working experience for the workers throughout the supply chain process (Paulraj, Chen and Blome, 2017). This sustainability can include minimizing the impact on the environment, fair condition of working and other considerations as well. Based on these sustainable considerations and information, an organization can effectively maintain their supply chain by showcasing its activities to the stakeholders in the business environment (Solutions, 2021).
• Make betterment in the continuity of supply: an organization can diversify the supply chain to avoid over-reliance on a single link. Having good and effective suppliers in terms of providing raw materials in quick and reasonable pricessuppliers are necessary for an organization because from the last few cases it has been found that suppliers were often unable to fulfil the needs of products and services which have hurt the business processes. By considering these scenarios if an organization is having multiple scenarios in different sectors can make betterment in the continuity of the supply process which will reduce the reputation damage and costly downtime. So, the benefits of sustainability in the supply chain consist of multiple suppliers in the management process of the supply chain (Quarshie, Salmi and Leuschner, 2016).
• Potential for new partnership: an organization with an effective supply chain with sustainability is an attractive prospect for other organization that is seeking a partnership with. The benefits are that the organizational environmental credentials will align with the values of other brands and that in return will have potential opportunities. In terms of sustainability, there is one company called Sainsbury that partnered with veterinary to support dairy farmers and teach them about dealing with common health issues. This can help the organization with an effective sustainable supply chain (Formentini and Taticchi, 2016). Therefore, these are the benefits an organization can have while incorporating sustainability which will help in maintaining the brand image of an organization and can give different other benefits which has been discussed elaborately in the above research work.  

Sustainable supply chain management starts with being aware of the company’s social, environmental as well as economic impact making effective changes to limit it. This process includes the involvement of the warehouse’s source for transportation of goods. In contemporary times, the supply chain is a source of efficient management leading to cost savings between components of the supply chain bringing higher firm profitability. As such the above process involves a warehouse for sourcing power to transportation of items beyond. The macro-environment ensures dealing with the impact made on business for the overall economy (Zibanai, 2018). Spending and investing in activities can be affected by presence in the macro-economic environment.

Sustainability supply chain helps an improvement in productivity in saving money by using sustainable techniques and resources for improving efficiency levels. The significance of a sustainable platform generates partnership opportunities because of environmental responsibility at work. Creating and implementing a supply chain management ensures the requirement for waste disposal for ensuring a higher role in waste disposal for energy use and transportation (Jia et al. 2018). By creating and adopting sustainability in the supply chain system, consideration of business decisions helps businesses to move forward. In initiating eco-awareness Pavegen initiates innovative ways to produce electricity for creating electricity. This power is generated into initiating kinetic energy and brings electrical energy to be innovative in nature.

By being a supply chain manager, suppliers produce and extract raw materials to ensure that they meet the guidelines. The focus on sustainability lies in being significant in the supply chain and predicting the effect that the supply chain has from which these materials can be extracted. As a result, this wider issue makes a requirement for a long-term strategy in which lesser actions enhance the company’s sustainability. On a limited scale, the actions in terms of strategies that take places are not based on paper work as they are utilized to be a digital means of communication to ensure the proper development of the planet (Mboga 2017). Verto Homes can reuse the energy and make up sustainable materials to preserve the integrity of the world. The company makes use of more people for initiating innovative solutions to the world. Ethical sourcing is a process through which products as well as sustainable methods.

Individuals cannot bring solutions to complications in supply chain issues at a company or personal level. Collaboration with those who might have previously been seen as competitors can lead to the development of sustainable practices of benefit to all involved. In working with closest competitors, this type of collaboration sets a common background to be held accountable for and enable creating an impact on the future of the industry (Cross, Davenport and Gray 2019). Consumer demand has initiated environmental concerns related to the global business agenda and making a sustainable approach towards longevity. In collaboration with BMW, an organization can epitomising on shared values of creativity technological style enjoys a challenge for utilizing ingenuity and attention to details.

Societal Pressures

A comprehensive understanding of the supply chain is in implementing an effective supply chain in visual understanding. The first step in sustainability requires mapping out on supply chain for allowing risk determination and bringing accurate responsibility in the representation of social, economic, and environmental challenges. Therefore, initiating human as well as natural resources comes across the stage of operational and production processes for showing how the changes are made. Coca-Cola’s procurement of raw materials lies in how it makes the inclusion of agricultural products to be sourced locally with partners to ensure the type of sugar applied. The significant ingredients ensure that partners can select sugar and utilize them to create a global network of the supply chain. As a result, this information can be utilized to facilitate analysis for supply chain networks. Sustainability is used for looking into the financial growth and environmental care for initiating the health of the society.

The functions to offer on least values to business are helpful for the supply chain to consider how costs and time frames produce or inhibit value. Therefore, calculating on long term for each element takes on average includes smaller things and bigger things for consideration bigger things for inclusion of bigger things (Horne and Mahesh 2019). The ways of sustainable development are associated with environmental costs created from environmental disruption created in a process of sustainable development for inclusion of resource use. The establishment of sustainable development strategy is in studying sustainable development of cost and timings for excellent scientific as well as technological skills.

Sustainability risk is defined upon as exposure to hurt the environment as well as people occupied within the supply chain. As such this sustainability is defined upon as meeting the present needs without compromising on the future generations initiated on three main pillars such as economic, environmental as well as social. As such this business strategy aligns the profit goals for meeting the environmental policies of the company (Ratnasari et al. 2018). The main goal of SRM is in ensuring alignment to sustain and grow the business for preserving the environment. KPMG’s review on corporate reporting is in initiating positive developments for sustainability reporting as well as assurance. In recent times, this coalescence is pushing on for harmonized standards in non-financial standards. This momentum needs to acknowledge on climate change for building insights in positive strategic action.

Tracking data ensures how the information is collected in line with communication to be associated for sharing on their plans through dashboards and company’s events (Santos et al. 2015). Collecting on these interests are valuable assets to bring down an individual’s own feelings and valuable data. The principles related to sustainability are in the foundation of the concept related to sustainability. Airbnb’s data analytics is in cutting down suspicious happenings and ensuring trust and safety (Laiolo et al. 2019). Locating and flagging on listings is in initiating experiences on data for keeping on rental property experience and making new listings for conference rooms. Gathering data into user’s profiles initiates tracking people based on their devices that they are using.

Organizational culture

The pandemic of Covid-19 is known to every country across the globe due to the fast spreads of the virus and this has impacted the entire globe in different ways. The economic recession across the globe has been seen. This part of the research is going to discuss different sustainability measurements in the supply chain during the period of economic recession.

1. Thinking more sustainably: different business organizations can mitigate and manage various sorts of risks across the supply chain by considering sustainability more and an effective way. The sustainability principles have moved into the centre stage as the economy begins to be back on its feet Different organizations have begun to re-think about making up their supply chain where the planet, profit and society must find a workable balance. According to the role of the supply chain, an organization can ensure the experience and satisfaction of consumers. The process of digitalization and other sorts of technological up-gradation can have more sustainability towards the supply chain. It has been found that the economic impact due to Covid-19 has amplified the consumers and public opinion with preferences for responsible business organizations (Laari, Töyli and Ojala, 2017). Different third-party systems with certifications are enabling the business organization to showcase their commitment towards protecting natural resources, tackling deforestation, and contributing towards living income. In addition to that organizations are producing works for the workers to have a decent and suitable life after the post-pandemic situation. The sustainability of the supply chain also provides transparency into the link which supports in satisfying growing demands for environmentally friendly products.
2. By mainstreaming the sustainable supply chain: the pandemic has exposed the issues which have been developed in the supply chain globally. The process of digitalization is crucial in the process of making the supply chain more sustainable. In addition to that with the help of innovation and technological up-gradation, organizations can have real-time data for the process of analysis and decision making in a business environment (Ivanov, 2020). In addition to that AI-enabled analytics along with digital work, instructions will enable decision making with smart features. Along with that, there are other emerging technologies like blockchain which will drive sustainable growth. A block chain is nothing but a system helps in recording information in such a way so that it becomes impossible for external people to hack or change information from a devices or system. In addition to that, there will be other considerations such as reducing waste, increasing efficiencies and will satisfy the demands of consumers for greener services and products. In terms of a sustainable supply chain, there are other innovative sets of tools that are introducing and allowing the consumers, organizations, and producers to track products from farms to the market (weforum, 2021). The system of traceability is becoming string to show where products are getting originated and moving through the supply chain so that the issues and risks associated with sustainability can be identified and solved properly and effectively. In addition to that, satellite imagery is being utilized to monitor deforestation and other sorts of environmental issues. It has threatened farmers productivity, the proper utilization of water and other sorts of long terms sustainable activities taken into consideration to reduce the risks in the supply chain.
3. Sharing the costs and benefits of sustainable production: the pandemic of Covid-19 has laid the inequalities within the different countries where the impact of pandemic economically exacerbates. The global downturn can have a negative impact in terms of pushing millions into poverty in the coming years(theguardian, 2022). It has been found that, when producers will lose income, there will be greater issues towards child labours and forced labour. In addition to that the rights of humans can be abusive in the global supply chain. Certification can be one of the key tools for farmers and organizations to show they are taking certain steps to address the context of sustainability. The process of certification will enable both the share and buyer to have the responsibility to invest in the reward sustainable production (orange-business, 2021).

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