Supply Chain Management: Terminology

“The supply chain encompasses all activities associated with the flow and transformation of goods from raw materials stage (extraction), through to the end user, as well as the associated information flows. Material and information flow both up and down the supply chain. Supply chain management (SCM) is the integration of these activities through improved supply chain relationships, to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage” (Handfield and Nichols, 1999, p. 2).

Sustainable development is defined as “a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 43).
While diverse comprehensions of sustainability exist, one central concept helping to operationalize sustainability is the triple bottom line approach, where a minimum performance is to be achieved in the environmental, economic and social dimension (Elkington, 2002). Dyllick and Hockerts (2002) have framed the three dimensions of sustainability as the business case (economic), the natural case (environmental), and the societal case (social).

Sustainable Supply Chain Management is defined as "the management of material, information and capital flows as well as cooperation among companies along the supply chain while taking goals from all three dimensions of sustainable development, i.e., economic, environmental and social, into account which are derived from customer and stakeholder requirements. In sustainable supply chains, environmental and social criteria need to be fulfilled by the members to remain within the supply chain, while it is expected that competitiveness would be maintained through meeting customer needs and related economic criteria" (Seuring and Müller, 2008, p.1700).

Supply Chain Controlling (as based on the Delphi-Study conducted by Westhaus and Seuring, 2005) supports Supply Chain Management for the strategic design of an inter-company network as well as the resulting direction setting for operative inter-organisational processes. Supply Chain Controlling is based on across company information provision and supports network wide planning and control.

Dyllick, T., Hockerts, K. (2002): Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability, Business Strategy and the Environment, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.130-141.

Elkington, J. (1997): Cannibals with Forks: the Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business, Oxford: Capstone.

Handfield, R. B., Nichols, E. L. (1999): Introduction to Supply Chain Management, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Seuring S, Müller M. (2008): From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 16, No. 15, pp. 1699-1710.

WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development) (1987): Our common future, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Westhaus, M., Seuring, S. (2005): Zum Begriff des Supply Chain Controlling – Ergebnisse einer Delphi-Studie, Logistik Management, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 43-54.