Green Supplier Selection Criteria: From a Literature Review to a Comprehensive Knowledge Base

Abstract

The supplier selection problem is one of the most important competitive challenges used by modern enterprises. Due to the fact that companies have to improve their practices in the management of a green supply chain that aims to respect green practices and technologies to increase sustainability, selecting the optimal green supplier is a challenging multi-dimensional problem. While most of the research has focused on the development and improvement of new methods, relatively limited attention has been paid to the identifying sets of criteria and capturing the domain knowledge. This issue is significant because a correctly identified set of criteria plays a vital role in supporting the decision-making process. The approach presented creates a gap between classical assumption of decision making and knowledge-based problem structuring. The current paper presents a methodological and practical background for capturing and handling knowledge about green supplier selection criteria, supported by a formal guideline for their appropriate acquisition. In addressing this research challenge, the aims of this paper are twofold: providing meta-analysis to reveal a collection of key data supported by a formal and trustworthy bibliometric analysis, and capturing knowledge in one place in the form of ontology for enabling selection and evaluation criteria of green suppliers is proposed. The proposed ontology is available for public use.Sustainability 2019, 11, 4208 2 of 41 issues related to business management and processes. In particular, the discovery and selection of knowledgeable suppliers has become a fundamental issue for global supply chain management.The choice of valuable suppliers ought to be focused on that type of partners that aim to respect green practices and technologies to increase sustainability. The assessment of the selection criteria does not only encompass the offered services and material quality, but also the supplier's opportunities for sustainable development, by adding individual green orientation to models of entrepreneurial intention to increase their explanatory power. Thus, a crucial key is to further establish the green policy of the company, especially with regard to supply chain management. There are many recent studies which focus on the green supplier selection issues, and there are also different approaches based on various methods, statistical models and artificial intelligence based models [9], data envelopment analysis [8], multi-criteria decision models/approaches [10], and cluster analysis, case-based reasoning systems [5]. With the large number of works oriented towards the development of methodological background in the green supplier selection process, little attention is paid to identifying and selecting the proper set of assessment criteria. Thus, the construction of models is based only on the knowledge of the experts/decision makers. [11][12][13][14]. It should be pointed that this process is very significant because a properly selected set of criteria determines the quality and c...

An Integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Support Framework for the Selection of Suppliers in Small and Medium Enterprises based on Green Innovation Ability

“…Green innovation defines as the innovative approaches taken by organizations to transform their conventional practices into greener to mitigate adverse environmental implications of organizational activities and to accomplish sustainable environmental targets [10]. Green innovation can help organizations minimize the ecological danger, air pollution, climate change, and other harmful environmental implications through green SCM [11,12]. Any organization which uses green practices in their supply chain operations has a good advantage in the market and thus can quote high prices for their eco-friendly products and can also enter the new market very quickly [13].…”

“…Supplier's economic competitiveness (A1) [30][31][32][33] Capacity of supplier's general innovation (A2) [20,32,34,35] Awareness about sustainability management (A3) [12,35,36] Trained human resources (A4) [12,20,33] Production efficiency (A5) [35,37,38] Green innovation initiatives (B)…”

“…Share of renewable energy utilization (B1) [39,40] Energy efficiency and conservation (B2) [29,39] Green transportation (B3) [12,20,22,41] Green recycling (B4) [12,20,22,41] Green warehousing (B5) [20,22,41] Green innovation performance (C)…”

“…Water conservation (C1) [12,29] Level of environmental implications on society (C2) [12,33,42] Level of R&D expenditure on environmental initiatives (C3) [32,41,43] Carbon emission reduction (C4) [12,29,39] Indoor environment quality (C5) [12,42,43] Green innovation monitoring and follow-up (D)…”

Quantifying the Sustainability of Products and Suppliers in Food Distribution Companies

“…Figure 8 presents a criteria hierarchy for sustainable supplier evaluation in fresh fruits that contributes significantly to both the literature and company management. To select the criteria, the authors have taken a literature review into account [26,42], as well as the results of a survey with managers of supermarket chains and interviews with experts. The survey included questions about the current system for evaluating fresh products and their suppliers and distinguished between criteria already applied and those that would be of interest to apply in the future.…”