A Practical Approach to Screening Potential Environmental Hotspots of Different Impact Categories in Supply Chains

Abstract

Identification of environmental hotspots becomes a pressing issue for companies pursuing sustainable supply chain management. In particular, excessive dependence on water resources outside the country may put the supply chain at unanticipated risk of water shortage. This article presents a practical approach to screening potential environmental hotspots of different impact categories that occur in the supply chain using environmental input-output analysis. First, the amounts of domestic and foreign potential impacts of global warming, terrestrial acidification, and water resource consumption, induced through supply chains were calculated for 403 sectors of Japanese products. Thereafter, with a focus on potential impacts induced through the import of raw materials, a framework for screening foreign potential hotspots was presented. The results showed that the sectoral potential impacts of water resource consumption had high rates of foreign impacts at deeper tiers of the supply chains for some sectors, which indicated that there exist hidden water hotspots outside the country. In the case study of fiber yarns, impacts on water resource consumption induced as a result of the import of crops, as well as that induced in silviculture as a result of the import of wood chips, were found to be the foreign potential hotspots. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 11879

Future risk of dengue fever to workforce and industry through global supply chain

“…The quantification of the consumption of scarce resources by the supply chain (Wiedmann et al 2013) has indicated that the resource supply could be at risk. Nakatani et al (2015) assessed the risk of water shortages, whereas Norris et al (2014) employed input-output tables to assess the social risks associated with supply chains. Nakano (2015a) extended the LCA method to evaluate the effects of environmental change on the product supply chain, and evaluated the effects of climate change on the international supply chain of Japan (Nakano 2015b).…”

Corporate water risk: A new research hotspot under climate change

“…As the classic reference stated that appropriate environmental regulations can stimulate technological innovation (Porter & Linde, 1995). Nakatani et al (2015) believed that excessive dependence on foreign water resources may cause corporate supply chain to face unexpected water shortage risks, put forward a method of using environmental input-output analysis to screen potential environmental hotspots of different impact categories in the supply chain.…”

Managing climate change risks in global supply chains: a review and research agenda

“…The majority (81.25%) of the research was found to be network-based, with limited (10.94%) studies purely focusing on the supply side and demand side (7.81%) of a supply chain network. Supply-side research includes responding to the natural resource scarcity (Bell et al, 2012;Bell and Mollenkopf, 2013;Nakatani et al, 2015), supplier engagement in the climate change (Jira and Toffel, 2013) and responding to raw-material production under climate change (Kirezieva et al, 2015). Demand-side studies include transport mode selection between a manufacturer and retailer under different emission reduction policies (Chen and Wang, 2016) and facility design under various carbon policies (Jin et al, 2014).…”

“…The resource dependence of companies and their availability and utilisation is also considered to be a climate change driver. Resource scarcity such as water shortages (Nakatani et al, 2015), security of energy sources and rising oil prices can be seen as immediate challenges for global supply chains (Halldorsson and Kovacs, 2010). Resource scarcity is a driver for organisations to develop control strategies to enhance supply chain performance (Bell et al, 2012) by overcoming some of the above challenges through alternate sources.…”

“…Carbon mapping (Lee, 2011;,"Managing climate change risks in global supply chains: A review and research agenda" International Journal of Production Research, accepted. Rizet et al, 2012) and environmental hotspot screening (Nakatani et al, 2015) were also identified as useful technique for climate change assessment and proactive mitigation. Crossdocking practices, increases in vehicle capacity, and improvement in warehouse activities are also expected to have a positive impact on GHG reduction (Dadhich et al, 2014).…”