A Systematic Review of Sustainable Supply Chain Network Design: Optimization Approaches and Research Trends

Abstract

In response to the ever-increasing pursuit of competitiveness among organizations in today’s global business landscape, the subject of supply chain management has become a vital domain encompassing a wide range of sectors and industries across the economy. The growing concern about sustainable development has prompted public and private supply chain players to incorporate the three pillars of sustainability, namely, economic, environmental, and social, into the design of their supply chain networks. This study reviews and examines the content of 102 relevant papers to discuss the mathematical models, modeling approaches, and solutions that have been explored in the existing literature on forward sustainable supply chain network design. This paper also investigates the sustainability elements and supply chain network peculiarities including design factors and decision levels. In this review, several limitations in the current literature on sustainable supply chain network design optimization models are highlighted. According to the analysis, it was found that a better understanding of the industry and its sustainability requirements and priorities is essential for designing sustainable supply chain networks that are tailored to the needs of a specific industry rather than achieving general sustainability objectives. In addition, integrating strategic, tactical, and operational decision levels in the design of supply chain networks is critical for evaluating their impact on each other in terms of sustainability. More sophisticated mathematical solution methods for dealing with real-life scenarios including nonlinearity and uncertainty sources are required. The paper concludes with new prospects of research to promote a better integration of sustainability into supply chain networks.