Int. J.

Production Economics 181 (2016) 342–349

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Int. J. Production Economics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe

Using AHP to evaluate barriers in adopting sustainable consumption

and production initiatives in a supply chain
Sunil Luthra a,n, Sachin Kumar Mangla b, Lei Xu c,n, Ali Diabat d
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government Polytechnic, Jhajjar 124103, Haryana, India
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graphic Era University, Dehradun 248002, Uttarakhand, India
c
Tianjin University of Technology, School of Management, Tianjin, PR China
d
Department of Engineering Systems and Management, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) is becoming a key focus for companies and organizations
Received 1 August 2015 aiming to ensure sustainability in business. However, the adoption and implementation of SCP initiatives
Received in revised form in a supply chain can be a major challenge due to existence of several barriers. Therefore, this work aims
22 February 2016
to identify and evaluate barriers related to the adoption of SCP initiatives in the supply chain. A total of 15
Accepted 2 April 2016
Available online 6 April 2016
barriers in adopting SCP initiatives are listed through literature and expert inputs. The listed barriers are
then evaluated to determine their relative importance using an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
Keywords: technique. The usefulness of the proposed work is shown by taking the case example of a plastic
Sustainable consumption and production manufacturing organization in India. According to the findings, the category of barriers related to
(SCP)
‘Government support and policies’ was attributed the highest importance among other barriers in
SCP adoption barriers
adopting SCP initiatives in the supply chain. Overall, the purpose of this work is to aid managers and
Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
Supply chain management (SCM) practitioners through important insights as well as support their decision-making in terms of managing
SCP implementation issues in the supply chain, in an effective and efficient manner.
& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction general public. Further, the requirement to encourage SCP systems

There are a number of serious environmental, economic and
social issues that are highly interlinked and have been faced as
major challenges during the past one or two decades (Govindan
et al., 2013; Neves et al., 2014). This is mainly due to unsustainable
patterns of consumption and production in business, resulting in
scarcity of natural resources and large amounts of waste genera-
tion (Adham et al., 2015). Besides, human population is also in-
creasing exponentially and it is anticipated that there may be rise
in the natural resources consumptions by nearly 170% of the
earth's capacity by 2020 (WBCSD, 2008).
Therefore,awareness for environmental issues needs to be
considered (Tyagi et al., 2015). Larger anticipation suggests that
pressure is rising on all actors in society to perform their part
towards shifting to more Sustainable consumption and production
(SCP) practices (Fleury and Davies, 2012). Creating SCP patterns is
one of the key challenges to society due to the fact that it requires
coordinated and focused action from government bodies, organi-
zations managers' and management as well as customers and the
n
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: sunilluthra1977@gmail.com (S. Luthra),
sachinmangl@gmail.com (S.K. Mangla), chully.xu@gmail.com (L. Xu).
and to deal with the related impediments has become ever more
urgent from a national standpoint (Vergragt et al., 2014).
From the perspective of a developing and emerging nation, one of
the major problems is the high level of carbon emissions, which ac-
count for a large portion of the global emissions (Zimmer et al., 2015).
In addition to this, developing nations generally lack the implementa-
tion of technologies that promote lower pollution as well as measures
to cut down emissions resulting from their industrial activities. To ad-
dress this, sustainable consumption and production business trends
may prove to be a powerful measure, but, at the same time, it remains
a challenging one too. Therefore, it is important for industries to deal
with the various challenges/hurdles/barriers associated with their SCP
trends, to achieve the sustainability in a supply chain scenario (Jayaram
and Avittathur, 2015). It will further help industries to evaluate their
own SCP initiatives to increase the overall economic, ecological, and
social performance (Lorek and Spangenberg, 2014). Therefore, the
present research attempts to answer the following research questions:

What are the existing barriers in adopting SCP initiatives in a
supply chain?

What is the required research framework that should be used to
evaluate barriers in adopting sustainable SCP initiatives in a
supply chain?

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2016.04.001
0925-5273/& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 S. Luthra et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 181 (2016) 342–349

What is the practical applicability of the proposed research
framework in the context of Indian industries?
The first objective of this work is to recognize the barriers to the
adoption of SCP initiatives in the supply chain. While certain barriers
can be identified through the literature or experts' opinions, there
remains the fact that different organizations may have different views
regarding barriers in adopting SCP initiatives in a supply chain. In view
of this, the same SCP adoption barrier may differently impact a certain
industry and therefore hold a specific importance for that industry.
Thus, a set of feasible barriers needs to be proposed and evaluated to
manage the adoption of SCP initiatives in various business operations
and activities of supply chain. This is the reason for which the second
objective of the present research is to evaluate the SCP adoption bar-
riers.In light of this, an AHP approach is used for determining the
relative importance of the barriers to adopt SCP initiatives in supply
chains (Saaty, 1980; Aouam et al., 2009).
A case example of the Indian plastic industry is discussed to
reveal the practical applicability of the suggested model. It has
been observed that India is among the most fast-rising economies
(Luthra and Haleem, 2015) and it may well be that the country
develops into a leading producer of plastics in the world up to the
year 2020. Given that there is a very wide scope of implementa-
tion of sustainability trends for the plastics' sector, including but
not limited to conservation of the resources, reduction of the en-
ergy consumption, reuse and recycling, it becomes evident that
there is great room for advancement of sustainable practices in
this industry in the context of a developing country.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. A review of
relevant literature discussing barriers related to the adoption of
SCP initiatives in supply chains is presented in Section 2. The so-
lution methodology is described in Section 3, while an application
case example with related results is discussed in Section 4. Dis-
cussions and implications of the research are given in Section 5.
Finally, Section 6 provides conclusions, limitations of the work as
well as directions for future research.
2. Literature review
This section presents the literature related to SCP implementa-
tion in supply chain, SCP adoption barriers in supply chains, and
discusses the research highlights for the study.
2.1. SCP implementation and supply chain
Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) can be understood
as ‘the use of services and related products, which respond to basic
needs and bring a better quality of life while minimizing the use of
natural resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste
and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product so as not to
jeopardize the needs of further generations' (Oslo symposium, 1994).
Berg (2011) made a comparison of national SCP programs of various
countries such as Finland, Sweden, and the UK. The findings obtained
in their study suggest that different SCP programs in different nations
may give emphasis to different principles. For example, the SCP pro-
grams in Finland and the UK highlight effectiveness theories, whereas
the Swedish program gives importance to achieve sufficiency too.
Jones et al. (2011) in their study analyze the sustainable consumption
agendas communication with the customers within stores by taking
the case of the UK's top ten food retailers. Study outcomes suggest that
food retailers under consideration are important to understand and
provide information on sustainable consumption. Lehtoranta et al.
(2011) make an attempt to distinguish how the ecological perfor-
mance of an industrial symbiosis/eco-industrial park is influenced by
SCP instruments, by illustrating the case of a Finnish pulp and paper
343
mill. They suggest that industrial symbioses can offer away of advan-
cing sustainable consumption and production. Besides, it has also been
stated that various national and international SCP policies do not
clearly recognize the potential of these eco-industrial parks. Thus, eco-
industrial parks need to be analyzed and developed on a life cycle
basis taking into account their benefits.
Hassini et al. (2012) state that the role of the consumer should
be adequately addressed by managers in greening the supply chain
and in ensuring sustainability in business. The conventional outlook
of the product life cycle is considered on the sourcing of raw ma-
terials, the production and delivery process, customer usage and
finally, the product is either abandoned to a landfill, recycled, re-
used, or re-manufactured for consumption. Parent et al. (2013)
highlighted the role of Social Life Cycle Analysis (SLCA) in the
transition towards SCP patterns and questions the relevance of Life
Cycle Thinking (LCT) in this role. Various applications of SLCA have
been discussed and suggest that SLCA help not only to develop LCA
sustainable but also assist in transforming production, consumption
and the economy towards sustainability (Abdallah et al., 2011).
Tseng et al. (2013) examine the opportunities for SCP in Asia by
focusing their literature review on green supply chain management
(GSCM) design and practices. They discuss green supply practices,
GSCM boundaries, green innovation, lean production implications, and
implementation process assessing methods. They also provide lessons
learned on SCP focusing on the Asia Pacific. They conclude that the
focus towards sustainable production practices remains a major chal-
lenge. Diabat et al. (2014) study the enablers for sustainable im-
plementation for the case of an Indian textile company. Brizga et al.
(2014) evaluate the SCP trends in the post-Soviet republics. The au-
thors analyze various SCP policy instruments, indicators and measures,
development attained and the key challenges in implementation of
SCP trends in these countries. Results suggest that none of these
countries was using a holistic integrated approach to develop SCP
trends. The European Union was identified as a critical driver for ad-
vancing sustainable development principles. At the same time, the
lack of adequate institutional support and funding mechanisms were
identified as top barriers to the promotion of SCP trends.
2.2. Barriers to SCP initiativesin supply chains
The barrier important to the adoption of SCP initiatives in supply
chains can be known from the literature and from expert's inputs.
However, different organizations might have different views re-
garding barriers in adopting SCP initiatives in supply chains. In view
of this, a barrier in one industry may not be such in another, or may
have a different impact (Diabat et al., 2013). Based on existing lit-
erature, 15 important barriers to the adoption of SCP initiatives in
supply chains were identified. These barriers were further validated
through expert inputs. In addition, these barriers were divided into
four categories (Management related barriers; Resource and ex-
pertise related barriers; Government support and policies related
barriers; and Stakeholder's related barriers) through expert judg-
ments (data collection details are given in Section 5). However, the
identified specific barriers are provided in Table 1.
2.3. Research highlights
In today's era, society is facing a number of serious issues and
challenges related to the environment and sustainability in terms
of global warming and natural resource scarcity (Govindan et al.,
2014b). In addition to this, continuous growth towards innovation
and technological solutions has appeared to be a situation
that confines industries, further impeding the procedure of
implementation of an effective solution for sustainability related
issues and challenges (Lorek and Fuchs, 2013). The main reason
behind this could be an adoption of unsustainable initiatives of
344 S. Luthra et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 181 (2016) 342–349

Table 1
Identification of barriers to SCP initiatives in supply chain.

Dimensions of barriers Sl. no. Key barriers to implement SCP trends References

Management related barriers (M)
Resource and expertise related
barriers (R)
Government support and policies
related barriers (G)
Stakeholder's related barriers (S)
1 Lack of support from management (M1)
2 Lack of proactive plans to adopt SCP initiatives
(M2)
3 Budgetary constraints (M3)
4 Lack of innovative methods in SCP adoption
(M4)
5 Lack of fundamental knowledge (R1)
6 Lack of technology developments (R2)
7 Incompetent workforce (R3)
8 Communication gap (R4)
9 Lack of rewards and encouragement programs
(G1)
10 Inefficient policy framing (G2)
11 Lack of governmental regulations (G3)
12 Lack of promotion of ethical and safe practices
(G4)
13 Reluctance of consumers towards sustainable
development practices (S1)
14 Lack of promotion of sustainable products (S2)
15 Lack of knowledge among stakeholders about
sustainable products and sustainability(S3)
Clark (2007), Zhu and Geng (2013), Lorek and Spangenberg (2014), Chka-
nikova and Mont (2015), Dubey et al. (2015), Luthra et al. (2015c)
Tseng et al. (2009), Gunasekaran and Spalanzani (2012), Reisch et al.
(2013), Schroeder (2014), Tseng et al. (2015)
Ageron et al. (2012), Tseng et al. (2013), de Haen and Réquillart (2014),
Luthra et al. (2015a)
Gaziulusoy et al. (2013), Whiteman et al. (2013); Lorek and Spangenberg
(2014); Blok et al. (2015)
Berg (2011), Urban and Naidoo (2012), Tseng et al. (2013), Longoni et al.
(2014)
Muduli and Barave (2011), Gunasekaran and Spalanzani (2012), Almeida
et al. (2013), Kaushik et al. (2014), Mangla et al. (2015)
Luthra et al. (2011), Sarkis et al. (2011), Gberevbie and Ibietan (2013), Merli
et al. (2015)
De Brito et al. (2008), Wong et al. (2009), Christopher and Holweg (2011),
Lettenmeier et al. (2012), Dubey et al. (2015)
Young et al. (2010), Moldan et al. (2012), Parent et al. (2013), Blok et al.
(2015)
Nazzal et al. (2013), Tseng et al. (2013), Brizga et al. (2014), Blok et al.
(2015), Luthra et al. (2015b)
Stevens (2010), Lehtoranta et al. (2011), Gunasekaran and Spalanzani
(2012), Lorek and Fuchs (2013), Tseng et al. (2013), Lorek and Spangenberg
(2014), Mangla et al. (2014a, 2014b)
Tseng et al. (2013), Subrahmanyan and Gould (2013), Sharma and Rani
(2014)
Honkanen et al. (2005), Mudgal et al. (2009), Peattie and Peattie (2009),
Liu et al. (2012), Almeida et al. (2013), Luthra et al. (2014a, 2014b), Sharma
and Rani (2014)
Peck and Carpentier (2008), Jones et al. (2011), Tseng et al. (2013), Go-
vindan et al. (2014a), Lorek and Spangenberg (2014)
Mangla et al. (2013), Morali and Searcy (2013), Kumar et al. (2013, 2014),
Lorek and Spangenberg (2014); Blok et al. (2015), Govindan (2015b), Go-
vindan et al. (2016a, 2016b)

consumption and production activities from an industrial stand-
point. Sustainable production and consumption is becoming a
significant need for industries to ensure sustainability in business
(UNEP, 2012). This may pose major consequences to several as-
pects of the organization, including its people, their education and
overall human development.
In addition, it must be noted that there is a relative lack in
research on the theme ‘sustainable consumption and production’
and its initiatives in business (Lorek and Fuchs, 2013). Therefore, it
has been a topic of great concern for scholars and practitioners
from all over the world to explore its significance in the devel-
opment of a sustainable business culture.
In view of this, the present research produces certain important
highlights:

The important SCP adoption barriers were finalized from the
literature and expert inputs (for details see Section 4).

The finalized SCP adoption barriers were evaluated to de-
termine their relative importance using AHP through expert
inputs (for details see Section 4).

The implications of the research are provided to manage the
SCP adoption related issues from a supply chain scenario (for
details see Section 5)
3. Solution methodology
AHP is used as a solution methodology in this work. AHP is an
approach which assists in decomposing, organizing and analyzing
a complex problem. It converts the problem undertaken into a
hierarchical structure consisting of various definite levels, such as
goal, criteria and sub-criteria (Saaty, 1980; Dey and Cheffi, 2013;
Luthra et al., 2013; Govindan, 2015a; Mangla et al., 2015).There are
numerous additional methods, like ELECTRE and TOPSIS that have
been presented to solve the multi-criterion decision making pro-
blem. However, AHP is suggested as a better tool in comparison to
others due to its wide applicability and ease in use (Harputlugil
et al., 2011). Therefore we implement an AHP method to evaluate
barriers related to the adoption of SCP initiatives in supply chains.
The flow chart of this research work is illustrated in Fig. 1.
The steps involved in the AHP are given as:
1. Formulation of the aim of work: Evaluating the barriers in order
to identify their relative importance in the adoption of
SCP initiatives in supply chains, is defined as the aim of this
work.
2. Formation of the pair wise comparisons: Pair wise comparison is
conducted by means of data collection from an expert panel and
based on expert judgment, the pair wise comparisons among
the factors are attained through a nine point Saaty's scale as
shown in Table 2.
3. Computation of the Eigen values and Eigen vectors and relative
importance weights: The framed pair wise comparisons matrices
were operated to determine the Eigen values and Eigen vectors,
which are further analyzed to calculate the relative importance
weights of the factors.
4. Evaluation of the consistency ratio: The consistency ratio (CR) is
computed to ensure the consistency of pair wise comparisons.
The used mathematical expression for finding the CR is given as,
CR ¼CI/RI, where the consistency index is denoted by (CI) ¼
(λmax  n)/(n  1) (λmax is the maximum average value) and the
value of the random consistency index (RI) depends upon value
of (n).The value of CR should be less than 0.10 to have better
level of consistency (Madaan and Mangla, 2015).
 S. Luthra et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 181 (2016) 342–349
Recognition of SCP adoption barriers in supply
chain using literature and expert inputs
Collection of data from case example
Finalization of the SCP adoption barriers through
expert inputs
Evaluation of the finalized SCP adoption barriers
using AHP based on expert inputs
Managerial implications and practical implications
Fig. 1. Flow chart of the research work.
Table 2
Scales in pair wise comparisons (adopted from Saaty, 1980).
Importance intensity Preference judgments
1 Equally important
3 Moderately important
5 Strongly important
7 Extremely important
9 Extremely more important
2, 4, 6, 8 Intermediate values between adjacent scale values
4. An example application
The proposed model is applied to a real world practical pro-
blem. The company addressed in the case study deals with the
manufacturing of plastic products. The annual turnover of the firm
is estimated to be around 100 million (INR). The firm has a good
market image at the national and international level. Additionally,
the firm is ISO-14001 certified. Various products produced by the
firm are given categorized as automotive plastic molded compo-
nents, wheel covers and casings, window and door handle, etc. The
firm has a mission of improving the performance without com-
promising the environment through its business activities.The
managers are looking to adopt SCP initiatives to achieve sustain-
ability in the supply chain. After consulting with the managers, it
is decided to extend the proposed research flow chart to the case
company. Thus, a procedure for identification and determination
of relative importance of barriers related to SCP initiatives is
conducted for the case company; further details are provided in
subsequent subsections.
4.1. Data collection
In the process of data collection, a decision group of five ex-
perts is formed, consisting of a general manager, a financial
manager, an environmental representative and two manufacturing
345
plant heads. After finalizing the expert panel, the next task was to
gather the data. Finally, the expert responses were collected
and data was gathered. The data collected is used in two phases,
described as follows.
4.1.1. Finalization of the important barriers to adopt SCP initiatives
in a supply chain
There were 15 barriers to the adoption of SCP initiatives in
supply chains identified and collected through the literature. To
validate the identified barriers, the experts were asked to add or
delete any barrier relevant to adoption of SCP initiatives in an
industrial context. The responses were gathered and several dis-
cussion sessions were arranged with the experts to finalize the
reported barriers for supply chains in the context of the Indian
industry. The experts show agreement with all identified SCP
adoption literature based barriers, hence, a total of 15 barriers
were selected.
4.1.2. Evaluation of the SCP adoption barriers in supply chains to
determine their relative importance using AHP
The finalized SCP adoption barriers were evaluated using AHP,
whose relative importance was invaluable identified through ex-
pert input. A hierarchical structure is formed using expert inputs
(see Fig. 2). This hierarchical structure has three different levels:
Evaluating the SCP adoption barriers for relative importance
(Level-1), the four categories of barriers (Level-2) and 15 specific
barriers (Level-3).
Pair wise comparisons are derived for both categories of bar-
riers and the specific barriers using expert's inputs through a Saaty
scale. This way a pair wise comparison matrix for categories of
barriers was framed and their relative weights are summarized in
Table 3.
The pair wise comparisons for specific barriers under each
category and their corresponding relative weights are shown in
Tables 4–7.
The pair wise comparison matrices were operated to determine
the relative importance and weights were assigned corresponding
to each category of barriers as given in Table 8.
‘Government support and policies’ was the category of barriers
(G) (0.3701)’ reported to be the most important for adopting SCP
initiatives followed by ‘Management related (0.3452)’; ‘Resource
and expertise related (0.1850)’ and ‘Stakeholder's related (0.0997)’;
as shown in Tables 3 and 8. Next, the relative importance weights
of the specific barriers were calculated. Global preference weights
of the specific barriers are also calculated, and correspondingly
their relative importance order or ranks were calculated; other
details are given in Table 8.
Evaluating the SCP adoption barriers for relative importance
M R G S
M1 R1 G1
S1
M2 R2 G2
S2
M3 R3 G3
M4 R4 G4 S3
Fig. 2. The developed decision hierarchy of barriers to adopting SCP initiatives in
supply chain.
346 S. Luthra et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 181 (2016) 342–349

Table 3 crucial in enforcing industries to implement and promote SCP in

Pair wise assessment matrix for categories of SCP barriers. order to increase the efficiency of various activities of businesses to
reduce the resource utilization and uneconomical consumption
Barriers M R G S Relative weight Rank
(Adham et al., 2015). It has also been stated that sustainability
M 1 2 1 3 0.3452 2 should be integrated into government directions and strategies
R 0.5 1 0.5 2 0.1850 3 in adopting SCP initiatives in supply chains (Gunasekaran and
G 1 2 1 4 0.3701 1 Spalanzani, 2012).
S 0.333 0.5 0.25 1 0.0997 4
There are four specific barriers in this category. Among them,
Maximum eigen value¼ 4.01036; C.I. ¼ 0.0034543. ‘Lack of governmental regulation (G3)’ obtains the highest relative
importance. It is critical that governments should interfere in
Table 4 implementing, monitoring and enforcing strong regulations in
Pair wise assessment matrix for ‘Management related’ category barriers to the adopting SCP initiatives. It suggests that strong government ac-
implementation of SCP trends in supply chains. tions are required in adopting SCP initiatives in supply chains
(Lorek and Spangenberg, 2014). Many business organizations are
Barriers M1 M2 M3 M4 Relative weight Rank
implementing cleaner initiatives in their supply chain to comply
M1 1 2 1 3 0.356440 1 with governmental regulations (Almeida et al., 2013). The ‘In-
M2 0.5 1 0.5 2 0.193576 3 efficient policy framing (G2)’ is ranked after (G3). Policy makers
M3 1 2 1 2 0.325727 2 feel pressure and become reluctant to tackle very powerful private
M4 0.333 0.5 0.5 1 0.124257 4
sector interests with regulations. ‘Lack of rewards and en-
Maximum eigen value¼ 4.06065; C.I.¼ 0.0202157. couragement programs (G1)’ comes next according to importance
order. So far, there is a deficiency in efficient strategies and policies
Table 5
in adopting SCP initiatives in supply chains.The key challenge is
Pair wise assessment matrix for ‘Resource and expertise related’ category SCP not only to develop attractive visions of the future, but especially
barriers. to develop supportive and efficient policies to adopt SCP initiatives
(Vergragt et al., 2014). Finally, ‘Lack of promotion of ethical and
Barriers R1 R2 R3 R4 Relative weight Rank
safe practices (G4)’ comes last in the list. This could be validated
R1 1 1 3 2 0.362887 1 from Berg (2011) that there is the lack of governmental leadership
R2 1 1 2 2 0.326078 2 in promoting ethical and environmentally safe product.
R3 0.333 0.5 1 1 0.147996 4 ‘Management related barriers (M)’ holds second place among
R4 0.5 0.5 1 1 0.163039 3 other categories of barriers. Benn et al. (2014) suggested that or-
Maximum eigen value¼ 4.02062; C.I. ¼ 0.0068734.
ganizational change within individual organizations is necessary
to promote SCP initiatives. However, management often fails to
make changes. This particular category of barriers entails four
Table 6
Pair wise assessment matrix for ‘Government support and policies related’ category specific obstacles: ‘Lack of support from management (M3)’ attains
SCP barriers. utmost importance in this group implying that it is important to
have the management support, commitment in adopting SCP in-
Barriers G1 G2 G3 G4 Relative weight Rank itiatives in supply chain efficiently (Geels et al., 2015) and fol-
G1 1 0.5 0.5 1 0.161286 3
lowing this comes the barrier of ‘Budgetary constraints (M3)’.
G2 2 1 0.5 2 0.270066 2 Smith et al. (2016) supported in their research that budgetary
G3 2 2 1 3 0.424864 1 constraints have been identified as a challenge for business orga-
G4 1 0.5 0.333 1 0.143784 4 nizations to make the essential changes required in the production
and consumption methods. Next to this, is ‘Lack of proactive plans
Maximum eigen value¼ 4.04582; C.I. ¼ 0.0152731.
to adopt SCP initiatives (M2)’, which shows that proactive plans
and actions in implementing SCP are needed at all levels among
Table 7
Pair wise assessment matrix for ‘Stakeholder's related’ category SCP barriers.
business organizations (Adham et al., 2015). The final barrier is,
‘Lack of innovative methods in SCP adoption (M4)’. There is a clear
Barriers S1 S2 S3 Relative weight Rank lack of innovative methods among organizations to implement
SCP initiatives, thus managers are suggested to develop innovative
S1 1 3 1 0.443429 1
and excellence centers to foster SCP initiatives in their business
S2 0.333 1 0.5 0.169200 3
S3 1 2 1 0.387371 2 activities.
The category of ‘Resource and expertise related barriers (R)’
Maximum eigen value¼ 3.01829; C.I. ¼0.00914735. acquired the third position on the importance scale. In this parti-
cular category, ‘Lack of fundamental knowledge (R1) holds the
5. Discussion and managerial implications highest importance. Organizations lack the knowledge related to
sustainability like the need for sustainability, sustainability im-
Based on Table 3, the order of relative importance of categories plementation benefits etc. Thus, business organizations fail to
of barriers is given as: G–M–R–S. The order of relative importance adopt sustainable practices in supply chains (Al Zaabi et al., 2013).
of specific barriers is also given in Table 8. A total of 15 barriers are Next is the barrier of ‘Lack of technology developments (R2)’. To
divided into four categories of barriers, and keeping that in mind, deal with this, the development of cleaner and more efficient
this research has put forward several implications for managers. technologies are required in adopting SCP initiatives in supply
To begin with, the category ‘Government support and policy (G)’ chains (Oskamp, 2000; Tanner and Kast, 2003). Following this,
holds the first position in the rank, and consequently, occupies the ‘Communication gap (R4)’ is the next important barrier. The sus-
highest relative importance in comparison to other categories in tainability information communicated by the business organiza-
adopting SCP initiatives in a supply chain. This means that achieving tions is not understandable by the customers or sometimes the
SCP initiatives in a supply chain is not possible without govern- claims made by the organizations are not trustworthy (GPNI,
mental support and related policies.The role of governments is 2014). Therefore, effective communication with supply chain
 S. Luthra et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 181 (2016) 342–349 347

Table 8
Global ranking of SCP barriers.

Categories of barriers Relative Specific barrier Relative Relative rank Global weights Global rank
weights weights

Management related (M) 0.3452 M1 Lack of support from management 0.356440 1 0.1230431 2
M2 Lack of planning to adopt SCP initiatives 0.193576 3 0.0668224 6
M3 Budgetary constraints 0.325727 2 0.112441 3
M4 Lack of innovative methods in SCP adoption 0.124257 4 0.0428935 11
Resource and expertise related 0.1850 R1 Lack of fundamental knowledge 0.362887 1 0.0671341 5
(R) R2 Lack of technology developments 0.326078 2 0.0603244 7
R3 Incompetent workforce 0.147996 4 0.0273793 14
R4 Communication gap 0.163039 3 0.0301622 13
Government support and po- 0.3701 G1 Lack of rewards and encouragement programs 0.161286 3 0.0596919 8
licies related (G) G2 Inefficient policy framing 0.270066 2 0.0999514 4
G3 Lack of governmental regulations 0.424863 1 0.1572422 1
G4 Lack of promotion of ethical and safe practices 0.143784 4 0.0532145 9
Stakeholder's related (S) 0.0997 S1 Reluctance of consumers towards sustainable 0.443429 1 0.0442099 10
development practices
S2 Lack of promotion of sustainable products 0.169200 3 0.0168692 15
S3 Lack of knowledge among stakeholders about 0.387371 2 0.0386209 12
sustainable products and sustainability

members is required to promote SCP initiatives in a supply chain.
‘Incompetent workforce (R3)’ is last in the list. Therefore, compe-
tent workforce should be hired and trained in adopting SCP in-
itiatives in supply chain.
The barrier related to ‘Stakeholders (S)’ comes last in the list.
There are three specific barriers within this category. It suggests
that stakeholder involvement is critical to promote SCP initiatives
in a supply chain (Mont et al., 2014). ‘Reluctance of consumers
towards sustainable development practices (S2)’ is ranked first.
Tseng et al. (2015) revealed that uncertainty about market demand
of green/sustainable products due to high costs is a key barrier in
adopting SCP initiatives in a supply chain. ‘Lack of knowledge
among stakeholders about sustainable products and sustainability
(S3)’ comes next. The current consumption levels are too high and
are unsustainable. This could be understood as the majority of the
stakeholders still lack ‘green/sustainable’ knowledge in many parts
of the world especially in non-developed countries (Lorek and
Spangenberg, 2014). Last, in the importance order list the barrier
of ‘Lack of promotion of sustainable products (S2)’ is ranked. There
is lack of information with regards to a coordinated approach of
promotion of sustainable products to society (Jones et al., 2011;
Lorek and Spangenberg, 2014). Therefore, there is a need to be
aware and empower customers in taking action and making a
significant contribution in sustainable development decisions
(Markkula and Moisander, 2012).
5.1. Managerial and practical implications
The current research sets forward several implications for so-
ciety and science; the major contribution among them is to facil-
itate industry experts and mangers to become aware of the bar-
riers with regard to the adoption and implementation of SCP in-
itiatives in a supply chain scenario. After acquiring a basic un-
derstanding on these barriers and issues, the concerned autho-
rities are better able to eradicate the barriers to implementing SPC
initiatives in business. They are also better able to recognize the
most important barriers and to formulate strategies to coordinate
their efforts in a most effective way. This research work ultimately
assists decision makers to prepare and practice well for the
widespread adoption of SCP initiatives.
The AHP based model may facilitate decision makers and
managers not only to determine the relative importance of SCP
adoption barriers and but also enable them to enhance the sus-
tainability of the business organizations in implementing SPC in-
itiatives.The findings obtained in this work may provide guidelines
to other developing countries like Brazil or China, to analyze the
barriers in SCP initiatives' implementation. In this sense, the pre-
sent work may serve as a benchmark study for business organi-
zations to address their specific hurdles and problematic issues in
successful adoption of SPC initiatives in business.
6. Conclusions, limitations and future work
Sustainable consumption and production is an important
practice that requires implementation at a global level rather than
just a national level, as it is absolutely essential to formulate an-
ticipatory ecological strategies associated with products, processes
and services to enhance efficiency, but also to decrease the nega-
tive impact on the environment and society. This work proposes a
structural model for evaluating the barriers associated with the
adoption of SPC initiatives in a supply chain. Initially, four cate-
gories of barriers and 15 specific barriers related to the adoption of
SCP initiatives were identified from the literature and from ex-
perts' inputs. Then, and Analytical Process Hierarchy (AHP) ana-
lysis is used to evaluate these barriers in order to determine their
relative importance order. The importance order of recognized
categories of barriers for adopting SCP initiatives is given as
G–M–R–S. According to the findings, the category ‘Government
support and policies’ possesses the highest importance, which im-
plies that it requires focused attention from governmental bodies.
This work also presents a case example to illustrate the real life
applicability of the proposed network model. The findings of this
research can be particularly useful for the case of companies
aiming to become more capable in analyzing the SPC im-
plementation related barriers. This work may also help regulatory
bodies, policy makers and SC practitioners/managers to prioritize
the elimination of barriers to promote SCP initiatives from the
supply chain scenario.
This study has certain limitations. The AHP based structural
model that is proposed in this work consists of four main barriers
and 14 specific barriers to the implementation of SPC initiatives in
the supply chain. The identification of barriers related to the im-
plementation of SCP initiatives may be challenging. Further, the
AHP based analysis uses expert inputs, thus, it is recommended for
carrying out the procedure carefully. The adapted methodology
AHP has several weaknesses such as vagueness, uncertainty and
bias. In future research, fuzzy AHP may be used to remove the
inherent vagueness and uncertainty (Govindan et al., 2015a). This
work presents a single case study. Multiple case studies may be
348 S. Luthra et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 181 (2016) 342–349
conducted in the future perspective. The proposed AHP based
analysis model may also be extended to different industry sectors
such as the automotive or power industry, which are particularly
known for having a substantial impact on the environment and on
society. Finally, in future studies, the identified barriers in the
adoption of SCP initiatives can be analyzed using other decision
making methods like ISM, ANP, ELECTRE, TOPSIS, DEMATEL and
VIKOR (Kannan et al., 2009; Jindal and Sangwan, 2013; Govindan
et al., 2015b, 2015c; Xia et al., 2015; Awasthi and Kannan, 2016;
Govindan and Jepsen, 2016).
Acknowledgements
This research was supported in part by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 71302005), the major Program of
the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant No. 13&ZD147).
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