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green logistics are important dimensions of GSCM practices needed by manufacturing
sectors to achieve enhanced sustainability performance. Green et al. [26] suggested that
GSCMpractices should include internal environmental management, green information
systems, green purchasing, cooperation with customers, eco-design and investment
recovery. Lee et al. [37] published the opinion that GSCM practices are composed of
corporate and operational strategies to improve the environmental sustainability such
as internal environmental management, green purchasing, cooperation with customers
and eco-design. Authors of contemporary literature usually presenting GSCM practices
from four important perspectives: green procurement, green manufacturing, green
distribution and green logistics [43], [58].
Green (or sometimes environmental) sustainability aims to improve the current
proceses which will preserve the environment as pristine as naturally possible. It is
about the alignment of sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, transportation and
remanufacturing/recycling processes with the goal of reducing a company’s carbon
footprint. Environmental sustainability demands that society designs activities to
meet human needs while indefinitely preserving the life support systems of the planet.
Sustainability requires that human activity only use natural resources at a rate at
which they can be replenished naturally. Sustainable development is intertwined with
the concept of carrying capacity. This entails sustainable usage of water, energy and
sustainable material supplies (e.g. harvesting wood from forest at a rate that maintains
the biomass and biodiversity).
A comprehensive monitoring and evaluation at the enterprise level would provide
an opportunity for individual companies to determine the level of implementation of
the green strategy. Based on this information, benchmarking for example of individual
companies within a holding structure could be done, or monitoring over a longer period
of time.
1.7 Sustainable supply chain management
Sustainability is practiced globally as a comprehensive strategy for improving
the sustainability performance of the manufacturing industry. Although there exists
a divergence of definitions of sustainability, these differences are not too great. Most
definitions of sustainability incorporate a consideration of environmental, economic
and social dimensions (see Figure 1.12):
• Sustainability is a wise balance among economic development, environmental
stewardship and social equity [54].
• Sustainability includes equal weightings for economic stability, ecological
compatibility and social equilibrium [25].
• Sustainability is the complete plan of ethical action for an organisation
which is attempting to transform itself into something sustainable, i.e. to
become pro-environmental, pro-social and traditionally pro-economic [38].