هماهنگ کردن زنجیره تامین پایدار با نیازهای بازاریابی سبز: مطالعه موردی

The research explores the challenges facing organisations in aligning sustainable procurement requirements and marketing needs and the attendant shifts in supply chain management practices. Whilst external influences are readily understood (e.g. regulation and customer demand), less is understood about the implications for suppliers trying to meet sustainable procurement requirements and the organisational challenges of aligning marketing with sustainable supply chain management. An exploratory case study of a UK University catering department has been undertaken, to explore the strategies, processes and relationships associated with synthesising sustainable supply chain and green marketing needs. The empirical findings illustrate the divergence between organisational perspectives on sustainability and procuring sustainable products with marketing demands. Thus, the findings extend the theoretical discussion on sustainable supply chains by providing empirical data based on real-life implementation and from this an emergent aligned supply chain model is proposed, which confirms two drivers for alignment, ‘lean and resource efficient’ and ‘local and seasonal’ — contingent on market demand. The findings emphasise the benefits of a reverse information flow, the importance of intermediaries, and relationships in its fulfilment, while indicating the resurgence of a supply ‘push’ of sustainable products into core markets. Future research directions are also posited.

Sustainability initiatives are transforming markets and distribution channels. The drivers for sustainability should not be seen solely as emanating from organisations as there appears to have been an attendant shift in consumer attitudes with regard to green products, services and processes. The inter-play between consumer attitudes, supply chains and organisational relationships is evidenced in both product and service markets. Although there are now an increasing number of conceptual studies on the link between sustainability and marketing (see Sharma, Iyer, Mehrotra, & Krishnan, 2010), the majority of academic papers have focused on manufacturing and have not used primary research. The greening of supply chains in order to meet corporate missions and/or establish a competitive edge is not well understood, in particular the challenges facing the integration of marketing ‘pull’ factors and operational ‘push factors.’ A change in organisations' core values has resonated in the development of strategic objectives that reflect the sustainability agendas increasingly evident in markets. This has resulted in attendant changes in operation and procurement practices. A case study of a university that focuses on sustainable procurement is timely because of the lack of empirical data on the public sector (Oruezabala & Rico, 2012). This study will investigate the sustainable procurement of food products of a UK University and the attendant shifts in supply chain management practices as it attempts to meet its goal of becoming a market leader in the sustainable campus rankings. As Oruezabala and Rico (2012: 574) found in the hospital sector, universities are “embedded in a network of stakeholders” — government, parents, students, corporate clients, regional labour markets, academic and administrative staff. One of the plethoras of university league tables in the UK is the People and Planet Green League, perhaps not surprisingly as it has been argued that universities have the power and thus, a key role in pushing the green agenda (Rovins, 2005). Hence, the case study organisation's wish to enhance its sustainable campus initiatives, which include the marketing of the sustainable food concept. Our study, by focusing on one particular aspect of the sustainability agenda, food procurement, is able to explore the implications for internal and external processes; the modifications to the supply chain and the key actors/stakeholders' perceptions of what constitutes a sustainable supply chain and how it meets core strategic values. The research objectives were based: on exploring the impact of sustainable initiatives on supply chain members (the ‘pull’ factors), the identification of the key supply chain drivers and the key marketplace drivers (i.e. the ‘push’ factors), the implications for the supply chain both internally with multiple stakeholders and externally and the management of these relationships. The paper begins with a review of the extant literature, drawing from operations, marketing and sustainability literatures in order to contextualise the study. This is followed by an explanation of the methodological approach and the findings from the case study. The discussion then ensues from which a number of key propositions are drawn and directions for future research are outlined to address the lacuna in applied research.

The sustainable supply chain is having a significant impact upon business practices. However, it would appear that most commentators, whilst recognising the impact, are not able to predict with any precision the nature of the business or supply chain models that will emerge. Although the integration of sustainability into strategic planning may only be partial at this stage, the limited longitudinal evidence available suggests that rapid changes are taking place in relation to both the large and smaller organisation, operating both in service and product markets. From the Case, it is evident that members of the supply chain are being influenced by changes not only in the structure of the supply chain but equally the changing relationships within this structure. They may, for example, receive new added value offerings from members of the chain with whom they already interface (e.g., internal services) or from members who have previously been more distant in the chain (e.g., local farmers). However, changes within the supply chain are not uniform — the response to making the supply chain more sustainable appears to take two strategic directions. Firstly, ‘lean and efficient’ which involves consolidation of the supply base into accredited wholesale suppliers able to meet the sustainability objective through their EMS systems, local distribution centres, small but regular deliveries, management of packaging, and product selection from an array of upstream suppliers etc. This route appears to satisfy the external objectives of regulation, standards, and potentially offers a measurable improvement to the carbon footprint — in other words, the ‘push’ emanating from the supply chain operation. This contrasts to ‘local and seasonal’ — the route which appears to offer most opportunity to suppliers and is typical of the value-seeking proposition or the marketing ‘pull’. However, adopting local and seasonal supply – evidenced in fresh meat, fish and vegetables in the case – exposes the supply chain to a greater upstream risk of availability, supply failure, obsolete inventory and information transparency. Strategies to overcome these risk factors are adopted by both customer and supplier, often relying on the regular (and customised or personal) exchange of information, collaborative adaptation of menus, postponement strategies, and intensive management of upstream sourcing activity through ‘buying-to-order’. While there is evidence that the local suppliers have the opportunity to play to their capability strengths, these are also limiting factors, since cost and resource constraints could preclude growth of these services, while efficiency savings could eliminate the value-adding activity. This replicates generic supply chain arguments proposed by both Fisher (1997) and Lee (2002) in relating unpredictable demand and uncertainty of supply (respectively) to the need for an agile or risk hedging supply chain. While for both Fisher (1997) and Lee (2002) the direction of improvement is towards eliminating uncertainty, this pushes a burden upstream to the sustainable suppliers and suggests that, for the buyer, the progression towards a sustainable supply chain is not necessarily linear in terms of those other, more generic, supply chain improvements discussed above. The revised conceptual model in Fig. 2 confirms that the sustainable supply chain is, like the conventional supply chain, characterised by a divergence of alignment according to the needs of different customer groups and their respective drivers towards sustainability, resource efficiency or value-seeking. The different groups respond to different green marketing approaches too, with a characteristic ‘pull’ associated with convinced sustainable value-seekers (Chakraborty, 2010) distinguished from the ‘push’ evident in cost conscious consumer markets. The model (Fig. 2) also reflects the proactive information sharing that the Case reveals upstream in the supply chain, and the limited opportunity for supplier development within the organisational procurement system because of stringent selection criteria.