1. Sustainable Supply Chains: Introduction

As firms become progressively more tightly coupled in global supply chains, rather than being large vertically integrated monoliths, risks and opportunities associated with activities, upstream or downstream, will increasingly impinge upon their own well-being. For a firm to thrive, it is increasingly imperative that it be aware of economic, environmental, and social dimensions of the entire supply chain it belongs to and that it proactively monitor and manage those. Finding efficient solutions toward a more sustainable supply chain is increasingly important for managers, but clearly this raises difficult questions, often without clear answers. In this introductory chapter, we first provide some insights on what does “sustainable supply chains” mean. Then, we review the main reasons that motivated us to assemble this book at this particular point in time. In a third section, we discuss the five main underlying principles we adopted in designing this book. Finally, we propose some insights on the future of sustainable supply chains.