Analysis of environmental sustainability practices across upstream supply chain management

In spite of the growth in the body of green supply chain management, it is still difficult to understand the environmental sustainability practices involved in supply chain management (SCM) activities. This is an interdisciplinary field and the scope of GSCM practices is broad covering from green purchasing to integrated life-cycle management. This paper focuses on upstream supply chain management activities, which are usually responsible for diffusing environmental sustainability practices across the supply base. Therefore, peer-reviewed papers focused on the diffusion of environmental sustainability practices across manufacturing supply chain base are examined. It is found that this diffusion is sharply related to the purchasing, performance assessment and collaboration. These upstream activities are affected by internal functions and the maturity level of environmental and culture of organisation. In addition, upstream SCM activities are better designed taking into account the characteristics of products and processes, mainly in terms of the inputs and outputs environmental aspects. This research can help manufactures to access example of environmental sustainability practices commonly reported in supply chain management field. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.