Green Supply Chain Management

The strategies that drive the decision making process for production management have been reviewed in studies which offer insights on potential patterns of supply chain relations for improving environmental performance (Florida, 1996; Florida and Davison, 2001; Geffen and Rotherberg, 2000; Green et al., 1996; Handfiel et al., 2002; Sarkis, 1995).

There is a lack of consensus about the environmental impact of Just In Time. Some authors suggest a positive relationship between financial performance and proactive environmental strategies (Russo and Fouts, 1997; Judge and Douglas, 1998; Klassen and McClaughling, 1996), while other investigations have found a negative relationship (Cordeiro and Sarkis, 1997; Worrell et al., 1995). Some authors, such as King and Lenox (2001), have analyzed the relationship between batch size and the wastes associated to the setups and the disposal of unused process material. Other authors have studied the relationship between delivery frequency, the number of vehicles and their percentage of utilization; they have also studied the relationship between design of the network and the distance traveled by trucks (MacDonald, 1991). Those studies reported that JIT could be detrimental for the environment.

There is a huge range of studies in which the transport optimization includes aspects related to the reductions of the carbon footprint in logistic operations. This fact can be confirmed by numerous research projects on topics like reverse logistics, as seen in Diaz (2004), estimation of the environmental impacts of logistics as seen in McKinnon et al. (2010), the revision of the green logistics that was carried out by Sbihi and Eglese (2009) who conclude that it is a challenging field for researchers and business people. Figliozzi (2009) presents a VRP with a new objective function: to minimize gas emissions, the greenhouse effect and fuel consumption. Pokharel and Mutha (2009) show the important increment in the number of studies about reverse logistics in recent years. This fact shows an increment in sensibility related to environmental topics in production systems. Ubeda et al. (2010) present a study in which the situation of a big distribution company is analyzed and environmental management principles have been incorporated into the decisionmaking process. Ho, L.W.P. et al., (2010) have treated the transportation problem and its environmental influence in the product distribution and the supply of materials and components.