Selecting green suppliers based on GSCM practices: Using Fuzzy TOPSIS applied to a Brazilian electronics company

Due to an increased awareness and significant environmental pressures from various stakeholders, companies have begun to realize the significance of incorporating green practices into their daily activities. This paper proposes a framework using Fuzzy TOPSIS to select green suppliers for a Brazilian electronics company; our framework is built on the criteria of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices. An empirical analysis is made, and the data are collected from a set of 12 available suppliers. We use a fuzzy TOPSIS approach to rank the suppliers, and the results of the proposed framework are compared with the ranks obtained by both the geometric mean and the graded mean methods of fuzzy TOPSIS methodology. Then a Spearman rank correlation coefficient is used to find the statistical difference between the ranks obtained by the three methods. Finally, a sensitivity analysis has been performed to examine the influence of the preferences given by the decision makers for the chosen GSCM practices on the selection of green suppliers. Results indicate that the four dominant criteria are Commitment of senior management to GSCM; Product designs that reduce, reuse, recycle, or reclaim materials, components, or energy; Compliance with legal environmental requirements and auditing programs; and Product designs that avoid or reduce toxic or hazardous material use. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Greening operations: an investigation of environmental decision making

This PhD thesis belongs to three main knowledge domains: operations management, environmental management, and decision making. Having the automotive industry as the key sector, the investigation was undertaken aiming at deepening the understanding of environmental decision making processes in the operations function. The central research question for this thesis is ?Why and how do manufacturing companies take environmental decisions? This PhD research project used a case study research strategy supplemented by secondary data analysis and the testing and evaluation of a proposed systems thinking model for environmental decision making. Interviews and focus groups were the main methods for data collection. The findings of the thesis show that companies that want to be in the environmental leadership will need to take environmental decisions beyond manufacturing processes. Because the benefits (including financial gain) of non-manufacturing activities are not clear yet the decisions related to product design, supply chain and facilities are fully embedded with complexity, subjectivism, and intrinsic risk. Nevertheless, this is the challenge environmental leaders will face - they may enter in a paradoxical state of their decisions – where although the risk of going greener is high, the risk of not doing it is even higher

The State of Sustainable Coffee: A Study of Twelve Major Markets

The State of Sustainable Coffee provides the first comprehensive overview of the market conditions facing, organic, fair trade and shade grown or eco-friendly coffees (termed 'sustainable' coffees). It offers an understanding of the history and market development of the most popular certifications for sustainability: organic and fairtrade. It further outlines the volumes, trends, distribution channels, major players, and price premiums in 12 nations across Europe and Japan, as a companion to an earlier North American report. While some common parallels exist, such as the priority for consistency and quality standards, the substantial inter-market differences emphasize the need to approach each country and sometimes each distribution channel with an appreciation for its unique distinctions. Overall, the striking emergence and growth of sustainable coffees has catapulted them quickly from a small niche industry to become a significant part of the mainstream market. Their growth has consistently eclipsed the growth rate of conventional coffee for more than a decade. As a result of their strict environmental and social standards, improved governance structures, better farm management, and price premiums, these sustainability initiatives are facilitating not only rural development but also agricultural trade competitiveness for developing nations. In agriculture, it is the coffee sector that has arguably developed the most advanced experience with certified organic, fair trade, and eco-friendly products that are now shipped from more than half of the coffee exporting nations. A number of other goods ranging from commodities such as tea and sugar to meats, fruits and vegetables are following the coffee sector's innovative sustainability models. Although these sustainably produced products are not a panacea, they offer one of the few bright spots in developing country agricultural trade and provide considerable direct benefits to the more than one million coffee producing families that participate

Sustainable Industrial Engineering along Product-Service Life Cycle/Supply Chain

Sustainable industrial engineering addresses the sustainability issue from economic, environmental, and social points of view. Its application fields are the whole value chain and lifecycle of products/services, from the development to the end-of-life stages. This book aims to address many of the challenges faced by industrial organizations and supply chains to become more sustainable through reinventing their processes and practices, by continuously incorporating sustainability guidelines and practices in their decisions, such as circular economy, collaboration with suppliers and customers, using information technologies and systems, tracking their products’ life-cycle, using optimization methods to reduce resource use, and to apply new management paradigms to help mitigate many of the wastes that exist across organizations and supply chains. This book will be of interest to the fast-growing body of academics studying and researching sustainability, as well as to industry managers involved in sustainability management

The State of Sustainable Coffee: A Study of Twelve Major Markets

The State of Sustainable Coffee provides the first comprehensive overview of the market conditions facing, organic, fair trade and shade grown or eco-friendly coffees (termed 'sustainable' coffees). It outlines the volumes, trends, distribution channels, major players, and price premiums in 12 nations across Europe and Japan, as a companion to an earlier North American report. While some common parallels exist, such as the priority for consistency and quality standards, the substantial inter-market differences emphasize the need to approach each country and sometimes each distribution channel with an appreciation for its unique distinctions. Overall, the striking emergence and growth of sustainable coffees has catapulted them quickly from a small niche industry to become a significant part of the mainstream market. Their growth has consistently eclipsed the growth rate of conventional coffee for more than a decade. As a result of their strict environmental and social standards, improved governance structures, better farm management, and price premiums, these sustainability initiatives are facilitating not only rural development but also agricultural trade competitiveness for developing nations. In agriculture, it is the coffee sector that has arguably developed the most advanced experience with certified organic, fair trade, and eco-friendly products that are now shipped from more than half of the coffee exporting nations. A number of other goods ranging from commodities such as tea and sugar to meats, fruits and vegetables are following the coffee sector's innovative sustainability models. Although these sustainably produced products are not a panacea, they offer one of the few bright spots in developing country agricultural trade and provide considerable direct benefits to the more than one million coffee producing families that participate. The book was published jointly by IISD, the International Coffee Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development with the support of the International Development Research Centre and the World Bank.coffee; sustainable; standards; organic; fair trade; Rainforest Alliance; Starbucks; agriculture markets; supply chains; distribution channels; small farmers; eco-friendly; certifications; developing country; Europe; Japan; sustainability trends;

Productive Development Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Case of Mexico

While Mexico has potential to grow rapidly, its economic growth has remained low for the past three decades. There is no consensus on the country’s development path or on how to achieve specific goals. Since the policy debate remains ideological and lacks pragmatism, productive development policies (PDPs) are often uncoordinated, redundant or even incongruent with each other. It is therefore important to understand the process whereby PDPs are designed and the institutional setting in which they are are implemented. This paper consequently examines whether PDPs respond to market failures and/or government failures. When PDPs are not designed to address specific market failures they can produce unwanted results or prove completely ineffective. When PDPs do address government failures, it is important to determine the reasons why the failure cannot be corrected in the first place and whether PDPs will be effective at addressing the problem in a second-best manner.Industrial Policy, Institutions, Policymaking, Mexico

Exploring the Essential Medicines List Concept

Background: Access to medicines is a basic human right. The World Health Organization (WHO) Model List of Essential Medicines was created in 1977, to promote access to essential medicines that satisfy the priority health care needs of the population. In this day and age, access to safe and affordable medicines is not guaranteed to all. There exists global inequality of access to lifesaving or essential medicines. This is referred to by the WHO as the ‘global drug gap’, in which approximately one third of the global population still does not have access to basic medicines. Contributing to the disparity in access, are rising pharmaceutical expenditures and globalisation of complex pharmaceutical supply chain networks. This has resulted in countries of all economies and geographical regions sourcing their medicines from common sources. Therefore, challenges accessing unavailable medicines have become a shared experience, as demonstrated by the relatively recent emergence and recurrence of global drug shortage crises. The WHO framework for access to essential medicines, which considers rational selection of medicines, affordable prices, sustainable financing, and reliable health and supply systems, was used as a theoretical framework to explore the gap in access to medicines. Aims and Objectives: Aim: To explore stakeholder views about the concept of essential medicines. Objectives: (1) To explore the application of the Essential Medicines List (EML) concept and how this was associated with access to essential medicines. (2) To explore the factors that influence access to essential medicines, and understand the roles of international key stakeholders involved in this process. (3) To explore what constitutes an “essential” medicine, and how the EML concept functions in a high income country (HIC) context. Content of This Thesis This thesis is made up of 4 chapters. Chapter 1 contains the background and a review of the literature on access to essential medicines. The challenges identified in chapter 1 lead to the exploration of global perspectives on the supply and management of essential medicines in chapter 2. The qualitative study in chapter 3 describes what constitutes an essential medicine for stakeholders in a high income country (HIC). Lastly, chapter 4 contains general discussions and conclusions from the work described in this thesis. Methods: A narrative literature review (chapter 1) was performed to explore how the application of the EML concept is associated with access to essential medicines. A search strategy developed from the principles of the WHO access to medicines framework was used to identify primary studies from Medline, Embase and PubMed. A qualitative study was conducted to explore perspectives of international (chapter 2) and Australian (chapter 3) key stakeholders about the pharmaceutical supply chain, on the application and relevance of EML concept and what makes a medicine essential. Snowball sampling was used to recruit decision makers, leaders or senior managers involved in medicines decision making across seven stakeholder groups. Stakeholders included: government, health care providers, academics, consumer groups, non-profit organisations, pharmaceutical manufacturers and wholesaler/distributors. Forty-seven semi structured interviews were conducted face-to-face, via Skype or telephone, audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interviews were conducted until thematic saturation was achieved. Data were analysed using a grounded theory approach. The comprehensive theory of collaboration was applied after the grounded theory analysis to organise and understand results within a management context. In addition, chapter 2 used the Ishikawa fishbone diagram to illustrate the complexities of the pharmaceutical supply chain. Meanwhile, chapter 3 illustrated the conceptual model derived from the results. Key Findings: Chapter 1- A literature review showed that there has been improved access to essential medicines for many populations. Findings showed EMLs help promote advocacy and provide reliable evidence at the health systems level. However, there was variable use of EMLs at the health services delivery level (i.e. for a patient at the point of care). Decision making around standard treatment guidelines and EMLs were often not aligned with procurement and management strategies within the supply chain. The literature review showed that accessing medicines was complex. Studies were often not well-designed, had narrow research objectives and few qualitative studies were conducted. Studies focused on resource limited settings in LMICs and scarce data was available for EMLs in HICs. Chapter 2- Qualitative interviews with international stakeholders described the complexities involved in managing the global pharmaceutical supply chain. While stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities were inter-connected, therapeutic decision making was often separated from logistic management of the pharmaceutical supply chain due to potential conflicts of interest. This created many gaps and inconsistencies around pricing and costs, planning and reactivity, communication and transparency, and contributed to difficulties building trust and consistency between stakeholders. Adding to this complexity, individualised or patient-centred care approaches have emphasised the need for consumer choice and demand a wide range of products that has become increasingly challenging to manage. Therefore, drug shortages have highlighted the opportunity for collaborative alliances to identify, prioritise, and manage vulnerabilities in the supply chain to prevent or mitigate patient harm as a result of restricted access to medicines. In particular, wholesalers and distributors were identified as potentially having more valuable roles in managing supply disruptions (e.g. redistribution) and facilitating information exchange between stakeholders (e.g. forecasting or confirming at what level of the system a shortage occurs). Participants also suggested designating drug shortage experts or liaison to manage and communicate shortages, especially to consumers and health providers. Chapter 3- Qualitative interviews with Australian stakeholders demonstrated that the different perceived functions of EMLs seemed to be stratified depending on whether the decision making context was at a health systems level or at an individual level (i.e., for a patient at the point of care). EMLs can function as reimbursement lists at the health systems level, or hospital formularies at the health services level. Meanwhile, non-reimbursed or off-formulary medicines were available to consumers who were willing and able to pay if they were deemed essential to individuals. Conversely, some medicines can be deemed essential but were not available or affordable to individuals. The wide range of views in this study, highlight the complexities of decision-making processes involved in developing and managing EMLs, which has been compounded by the expanding consumer need to have a range of therapeutic options. These findings emphasise the context within the health system determines for whom a medicine is deemed essential. Conclusion: Prior to this thesis, EMLs have been studied with narrow research objectives and mainly in LMICs. This body of research was the first to explore how the application and management of EMLs effected access to medicines, from a broad range of stakeholder views involved in both therapeutic decision making and logistics management. Furthermore, it was also a rare study that examined the EML concept within HIC contexts. Findings from this body of work demonstrated different perceived functions of the EML. Furthermore, it also questioned whether the term ‘essential’ was appropriate and reflected how the EML was used. While EMLs can be useful to guide evidence based decision making for reimbursement at the systems level, the variations in the notion of essential at the individual level is influenced by an individual’s choice. Therefore, this highlights the importance of guiding (or limiting) consumer choice with appropriate and accessible information, to help individuals make informed and responsible decisions. This research confirmed that the access to medicines gap continues to be problematic. The pharmaceutical supply chain has been unable to handle drug shortages adequately. Therefore, in order to sustain patient-centred care practices, concessions by all stakeholders must be made if the supply chain is to withstand global economic, political, and ecological instability. Multi-stakeholder engagement, transparent processes, innovative communication pathways, and EML approaches offer potential solutions to mitigate supply chain disruptions. Future approaches should align decision making priorities with procurement practices. Decision makers and supply chain managers have a valuable opportunity to reflect and understand how the current system is functioning, in order to develop foundations for improved processes, and innovative and cooperative platforms to interact and network

Supplier selection in the Malaysian telecommunications industry

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Supplier selection plays an important role in any organisation. This study investigates and examines supplier selection criteria and the impacts on buying firm performance; specifically focusing on the telecommunications industry in Malaysia. Previous studies in this area have focussed on the criteria such as quality, price, delivery, supplier relationship management and decision making tools and techniques. However, little research has been undertaken to include government policies and business ethics as elements in the supplier selection criteria. After a literature review and interviews, the development of conceptual frameworks and a number of hypotheses were put forward. To achieve an in-depth study, four major telecommunications service provider companies in Malaysia were chosen as a case study. A questionnaire was used as the main instrument in gathering data. The questionnaire is principally concerned with the understanding of supplier selection and its criteria; based upon the variables that are used for the model and hypothesis testing. The study also investigates the relationship between supplier selection and the impact of supplier selection to the company performance. This model was tested using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique with the AMOS software application. Results indicated all of the criteria include quality, price, delivery, supplier relationship management, decision making tools and techniques, government policy and business ethics as valid constructs. A good model fit was also established. The findings of this research conclude that the influencing criteria to supplier selection in the telecommunications industry in Malaysia are supplier delivery performance standards and supplier relationship management even when considering the remainder of the above mentioned elements.The price factors were found to be less important due to this factor possibly leading to unhealthy competition in the market in terms of price wars among the suppliers in order to win the business. Most of the criteria are also interrelated to each other and affect the supplier selection decision. This model has added new perspectives to the study of supplier selection in the supply chain management field. As for future research it is suggested that intangible elements such as political, cultural and social influences are included in the conceptual framework; as this would offer important insight for management bodies in organisation, academia and public policy fields alike

Gaining Depth: State of Watershed Investment 2014

Last year, governments, businesses, and donors channeled $12.3 billion (B) toward nature-based solutions to the global water crisis. Water users and public funders were paying land managers to repair and protect forests, wetlands, and other natural systems as a flexible, costeffective strategy to ensure clean and reliable water supplies, resilience to natural disasters, and sustainable livelihoods. These deals paid for watershed protection and restoration across more than 365 million (M) hectares (ha) worldwide in 2013, an area larger than India.The value of investment in watershed services1 (IWS) - referring to funding for watershed restoration or protection that delivers benefits to society like aquifer recharge or erosion control - has been growing at anaverage rate of 12% per year. The number of operational programs grew by two thirds between 2011 and 2013, expanding in both scale and sophistication as program developers introduced new tools to track returns on watershed investment, coordinated efforts across political boundaries, and delivered additional benefits like sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity protection