Sustainable procurement can be defined as the pursuit of sustainable development objectives
through the purchasing and supply process. Interest in sustainable supply chain management
has been rising on practitioner, policy-maker and academic agendas in recent years. Despite
the increasing attention, there have been criticisms that people are paying green lip-service
to the issue, and that sustainability has a certain currency at the moment but will be a passing
fad. Practitioners with an interest in the area often have to sift through a surfeit of
information. Consider also apparent paradoxes between current purchasing and supply
management practices and sustainability, such as the environmental impacts of just-in-time
supply, global sourcing, and short-term gains at the expense of whole life waste. This special
issue aims to bring together articles from across the spectrum of sustainable supply chain
management research, collating the latest research and thinking in the field. Academic articles
are invited in (but not limited to) the following areas:
Sustainability in supply chains, corporate social responsibility, responsible purchasing,
sustainable procurement and sourcing
Balancing social, economic and environmental issues in supply chains
Green washing; green lip-service
Sustainability and the recession / financial crisis
Aligning sustainable supply chain strategy with corporate strategy
Environmental supply environmental management systems, carbon reduction
programmes
Environmental impacts of just-in-time supply systems
How to support sustainability in buyer-supplier relationships
The role of stakeholders (e.g. NGOs) in the sustainable procurement process
Sustainable purchasing tools life cycle analysis, whole life costing, social audits,
supplier assessment
Ethical supply purchasing codes of conduct, Fair Trade, corruption in purchasing,
ethical buyer behaviour
Global sourcing and offshoring effects on sustainability
Sustainability and performance do companies practicing sustainably perform better?
Government approach sustainable procurement; regulation and legislation
Supply from third sector and small businesses
An international perspective; how different countries and sectors approach sustainability
Organising the purchasing function and inter-functional interfaces in pursuit of sustainable
development
Articles are welcome which adopt any methodology, which make a novel theoretical
contribution, and are both scholarly and relevant.
All manuscripts should adhere to the guidelines of the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management,
and be submitted through the Elsevier on-line submissions system (EES).
Deadline for submission: 15 Jan 2011
Expected publication date: December 2012