1.1.

Green supply chain management (GSCM)

In the existing literature, GSCM has gained attention in the supply chain and natural environment
[1,2,6]. To satisfy end consumers as well as other stakeholders [11], GSCM requires well-integrated and
coordinated activities among corporate operations such as buying, production, marketing, and logistics
(e.g., see Ref. [24]).Companies' motivation to implement green business practises (GBP) is anticipated to
increase.Reduce pollution, waste, and energy consumption, utilise renewable resources, and include
and execute resource shelter initiatives to guarantee that products/services are delivered in an
ecologically sustainable manner.fashion [46]. For example, literature provides three key approaches of
GSCM: 1) reactive "companies commit minimal resources to environmental management, label products
that are recyclable, and use "end of pipe" initiatives to lower their environmental products" 2) proactive
"companies start to pre-empt new environmental laws by realising a modest resources commitment to
initiate product recycling and design green products" and finally 3) value seeking "companies commit
minimal resources to environmental management, label products that are recyclable, and use "end of
pipe" initiatives to lower their environmental products Despite the fact that previous literature has
examined various effects of implementing GSMC techniques, the present arguments surrounding GSCM
and market competitiveness are weak and contentious. For example, GSCM literature produced
inconclusive conclusions about the usefulness of GSCM in organisations. Scholars could not agree on
whether GSCM procedures promote profitability or not. Existing research provides theoretical reasons in
support of and against both ideas. Scholars, for example, believe that achieving a competitive advantage
may be a cost on a business [48]. [49] expressed major worries about losing competitive edge when
GSCM techniques raise total corporate costs. According to another study, GSCM procedures are more
likely to improve operational efficiency than profitability [50]. [51] unable to show a strong link between
GSCM and business profitability. Scholars, on the other hand, argued in support of GSCM adoption,
establishing via theoretical reasoning that GSCM adoption improves the financial performance of the
business. For example, Freeman [52] classified as positive externals externalities produced by
organisations that influence both parties (stakeholders) internally. Externalities put pressure on
organisations to implement environmentally friendly practises and decrease waste.in terms of resources
According to stakeholder theory, taking care of stakeholders Expectations will improve organisational
performance and hence raise business profitability [52,53]. Furthermore, it has been shown that firms
with eco-friendly practises and the highest stakeholder support may gain a competitive advantage [54].
Few academics stated that GSCM had an indirect influence on business profitability. For example, Feng
et al. [55] proved that GSCM has no direct impact on organisational profitability since it primarily
stresses operational process and resource management, which may not immediately improve financial
performance. The next part focused on the continuing GSCM and Covid-19 discussion.
1.1. GSCM and Covid-19
Following the Covid-19 epidemic, the efficacy of GSCM has become increasingly debatable. Arguments
in support and against GSCM have been made.

sparked scholarly interest Scholars, for example, have claimed that implementing GSCM can never
protect an organisation against Covid-19 shocks. They based their supplement on numerous factors.
Based on earlier experience, King and Lenox [51] and Laari et al. [50] proposed that GSCM has no
association with the organization's financial success and does not get preferential support from
investors during an uncertain moment. As a result, the critic used this occasion to claim that GSCM will
be ineffective during Covid-19. Following that, it is said that investment in the supply chain may be
reduced as a result of additional obstacles such as those imposed by Covid-19. According to Amankwah-
Amoah [56], despite organisations adopting new environmental policies, they are frequently abandoned
when confronted with new and unanticipated obstacles. When financial resources are severely taxed
(for example, owing to Covid-19), organisations struggle to retain momentum, and investing in eco-
friendly sustainable practises will be a major issue. Furthermore, GSCM's ineffectiveness stems from the
fact : COVID-19 is a social and health crisis rather than an environmental one. The company's focus may
shift considerably from environmental sustainability to social sustainability as a result of this. The danger
of infectious illnesses, for instance, was not listed among the top five concerns, according to the "Global
Risk Report 2020" of the World [57]. Traders may believe that this could alter after COVID-19 as social
and health considerations take precedence over environmental factors. On the other hand, it has been
suggested that GSCM may shield businesses against catastrophes like Covid-19. Stakeholder theory
holds that businesses that practise CSR, especially in times of crisis, are more likely to be rewarded for
their commitment to their stakeholders and to the environment. However, the results revealed that the
return is modest but steady [12,58] (Khalid et al., 2021). Because they can swiftly manage their supply
chain and prevent losses due to a scarcity of raw materials, it is hypothesised that businesses that have
invested in GSCM are more adaptable in dealing with unexpected situations like Covid-19 [6]. Recent
research have validated GSCM as a feasible sustainability component that benefits stakeholders and
organisations. long-term and is aware of abrupt environmental changes [13, 59]. Additionally, GSCM
enables a firm to penetrate the market, improve their reputations, and become more competitive,
according to Balan and Conlon [34]. In order to increase market share and competitiveness, researchers
have stressed that GSCM research should be comprehensive in both breadth and depth, particularly
during times of crisis like the Covid-19. Because of this, we deepen our grasp of GSCM practise and
supporting mechanisms like EMS, which increases market competitiveness (See Fig. 1).

1.1. GSCM, EMS and market competitiveness

The vital role that EMS plays in any company's efforts to accomplish the objective of enhancing the
environment and business performance has been acknowledged by the ISO 14001 standard's creators
[60]. EMS attention may even

EMS should be so crucial to the business that no one will be able to obtain a competitive edge unless
they have an effective EMS that complies with ISO 14001 requirements. For instance, the literature that
is currently available discussed how EMS 1) is an environmental policy committed to preventing
pollution, 2) makes it easier for the organisation to plan, control, and monitor policies for the benefit of
the businesses, 3) strengthens management and employee commitment to an eco-friendly
environment, 4) provides resources for personnel development such as training on a daily basis, and 5)
motivates investors and other stakeholders. help keep EMS going inside their workplaces. The European
Commission (EC) is known for developing the EMS, a tool that may facilitate the transition to a more
supply chain [61]. The EMS uses formal databases and technologies that offer an integrated system for
staff training, monitoring, summarising, and reporting of expert environmental performance data.

for the organisation and its stakeholders [62]. The basic foundation of EMS is an internal formal
organisation, with the major goals being resource conservation, pollution control, and timely reporting
to the top management for strategy creation. For image-building purposes, such official information is
often included in a company's annual report [63]. Our goal is to explore the relationship between such
systems, the environmental decisions the organisation makes, and the aforementioned definitions.
include things like GSCM, increasing market competitiveness. When discussing market competition, the
phrase "the market where numerous com-petitioners compete with one another, However, factors like
eco-friendly products, larger sales turnover, bigger market share, and other innovations enable a firm to
manufacture goods or services better or at a lower cost than the competition.

[64, 65] Export. It enables them to outperform competitors in terms of margin.

of the business [38]. EMS is a procedure, not a standard performance metric that applies to all
organisations. But the primary goal of EMS is to help the company reach the targeted environmental

objective. This strategy is based on the practicality of GSCM (described before) and EMS. The ability of
the company to handle GSCM and EMS simultaneously will have a favourable impact on overall SCM and
improve performance [66]. GSCM users, for instance, are more likely to practise EMS officially, which
has a positive synergistic effect on organisational performance [67]. They did not examine the official
EMS links with GSCM, though, and they did not discover such relations at times of crisis like Covid-19. In
a recent research [7], new characteristics including employee expressive and instrumental relationships,
knowledge sharing, and dedication inside businesses integrated in EMS are highlighted. These
characteristics may more likely increase market competitiveness. The managements are better equipped
to manage their resources and operations thanks to GSCM and strong EMS systems. The organisation
may better implement GSCM procedures with the aid of the EMS system. When GSCM methods are
used, for instance, EMS may help firms manage organisational change and developments [2], which will
boost financial stability [6]. Additionally, the EMS system may assist the firm employ internal resources
and data from different functions that may aid in managing environmental challenges. [61]. For
instance, [62] asserts that EMS adoption reduces resource consumption, which might result in
organisations' financial stability.

SMEs [67] are small and medium-sized businesses. emphasised that the only way to improve
organisational performance is with a full EMS.

Existing research has covered a variety of factors that affect market competitiveness. For instance, a
crucial element that might increase an organization's ability to compete in the market is its reputation
[65]. Adopting environmentally friendly procedures, eco-innovation (such as new environmentally
friendly products), and EMS certification (such as ISO 14001) will improve the company's external
reputation [3,10,68], which will increase its competitiveness in the market and boost its profitability [59,
67]. Based on the discussion and recommendations above, we made the case that GSCM will be more
effective if it is integrated with a formal EMS system. This will not only help the organisation manage its
limited resources, but will also improve its competitiveness in the market and boost its financial stability,
especially during COVID-19.
1.1. Big data analytics-artificial intelligence (BDA-AI)
Large or sophisticated data volumes that typically surpass exabytes have been referred to as "big data."
It surpasses conventional systems' constrained capabilities in terms of data storage, processing,
monitoring, decoding, and

image-making [67]. Data is growing on a daily basis and may soon reach a zettabyte per year [69]. The IT
revolution, customer awareness, and globalisation have all increased competition in today's increasingly
Organizations must adapt as a result of globalisation. Competition between organisations and supply
chain activities takes the role of competition among organisations. As a result, supply chain experts are
working arduously to manage the enormous amounts of data in order to create an integrated, effective,
efficient, and agile supply chain system [39]. The whole supply chain's enormous expansion in data
volume and variety has driven a demand for systems that can swiftly and intelligently evaluate vast
volumes of data. The usage of BDA-AI, which has been recognised as a best practise, allowed the
company to handle the issues with the supply chain by extracting usable information from the vast
volume of data [14,39].

Recent research has revealed the importance of BDA-AI in GSCM [14, 70]. GSCM has developed into a
significant topic of concern for managers, legislators, and the general public as a result of the growing
environmental awareness of global warming, hazardous pollutants, and chemical spills [69,71]. Both
rising markets, i.e., China and India, embrace digital technology such smart detecting devices to manage
the environmental challenges within and between businesses in an effort to enhance GSCM. For
instance, a smart device was employed in Jiangsu Province of China to gather environmental data in
real-time, which results in millions of flows and various streams that are unstructured [32]. BDA-AI will
be useful in these situations to analyse the unstructured data and produce intelligent insight. For
particular, BDA-AI can assess dynamic data on energy - related carbon emissions in real-time and enable
industrial process modification with the aim of reducing energy use and emissions [35,72].

Anecdotal information suggests that few businesses used BDA-AI for GSCM procedures. In its 2016
Reports, "Beijing Cs Biological Manufacturer," for instance, said that "Genuine monitoring Energy
consumption control is strengthened through the use of big data and other approaches, according to
BDA-AI, which companies employ to provide relevant information to advance environmental practises
[31]. Additionally, BDA-AI procedures have made it possible for the organisation to use green quality
products, cut back on natural resource waste, and minimise greenhouse gases [39, 73]. Therefore, we
think that BDA-AI might be a valuable tool to enhance the effectiveness of EMS inside a company and
more effectively apply GSCM techniques.
1.1. Environmental visibility (EV)
The availability of environmental information to stakeholders has been regarded as having an influence
on company operations and stakeholder expectations [43]. The disclosure of environmental information
to stakeholders is maybe a fundamental component to initiate a discussion with the goal of taking into
account stakeholders' requirements and making choices accordingly.[42]. The answer to the numerous
supporters who are interested in the company's success also has a variety of implications from the
viewpoint of stakeholders [74]. As a result, businesses are focusing on topics like the "triple bottom line"
to increase the visibility of environmental data.CSR and "sustainable" reporting [40]. To come out as
transgender In addition to shareholders, governments, NGOs, unions, clients, and other stakeholders,
these reports also address additional stakeholders [5]. More generally, the body of existing literature
demonstrates that increased stakeholder inclusivity will be advantageous to the organisation for EV
[42,75].

Comment from consumers is included in the disclosure of environmental information, which will support
internal climate change policies.[65] and, thus, market viability. Numerous investigations have It has
been demonstrated that environmental disclosure may influence profitability by enhancing a company's
reputation, and if stakeholder-specific concerns are addressed, a larger benefit can be obtained [43].
The EV should be a the same data that was used by the organisation to solve sustainability problems.
The disclosure relationship trust may be harmed if the actual policy differs from the reported policy [76,
77]. Because stakeholders may quickly see discrepancies between real and disclosed information, such
as green practises and EMS, researchers have refuted claims that organisations may struggle to adopt
these visible rules in their firms [78]. Consequently, by building a formal EMS and also the institution's
reputation, this connection mistrust may be reduced, and EV would then be more likely to boost the
company's competitiveness in the market.

More than most other company operations like manufacturing and distribution, EVs in businesses help
to environmental sustainability [43,76]. Businesses may get better outcomes if they adopt EV practises
to communicate openly about the environmental performance in their supplier chains. For instance,
revealing information to stakeholders and managing operations and supply chain activities to apply EMS
practises are examples of transparency in disclosure. In line with Marshall et al[45] .'s clear strategy, we
thus hypothesised that EV will probably improve the connection between EMS and market
competitiveness.

Supply chain resilience

In order to examine resilience for dealing with different techniques, including analytical for selection,
the literature has chosen a variety of ways. For instance, (Adtiya, 2014) and (Rajesh, 2015) utilised
multicriteria methods for choosing a supplier in a setting of robust supply chain. Graph theory
interpretive structural modelling was utilised by (Soni et al., 2014) to categorise and rank supply chain
resilience enablers. Studies that focused on inventory optimization, quantity ordering, and
transportation routing in resilient supply chains (Kristianto et al., 2014; Sawik, 2013) and presented
proactive and reactive strategies to the recovery policies under ripple effect conditions all took
optimization approach into consideration (Ivanov et al, 2015). Optimization was used to approach the
design and planning of effective restoration procedures and maximised resilience against interruptions
(Gong et al, 2014; Cardoso et al, 2015). Similar to how (Xiao et al., 2014) employed linear mixed integer
programming for selection stations in a distribution grid to maximise resilience while lowering costs. The
goal of conceptual study is to examine the idea of resilience in the context of the supply chain (Proper,
2011; Mensah et al, 2014; Fiksel, 2003). Special issues are addressed to deal with searching for
appropriate resilience tools and strategies (Mensah et al., 2014), identifying and exploring the
friendships between logistics and resilience in relation to vulnerability (Jüttner et al., 2011), and looking
at the interactions between entities in resilient supply chains (Kim et al, 2015) How to gauge resilience
and the impact of system dynamics (Spiegel et al, 2012). In turn, evidence based methodology was
widely used in the literature. For example, a few scientific findings (Demmer et al., 2011, Nikookar et al.,
2014, Ambulkar et al., 2015, Leat et al., 2013) analysed features and practises for improving resilience,
while other studies focused on the general concept of resilience (Pettit et al, 2010; Proper, 2011).
Additionally, literature dealt with the development of instruments for determining the condition of
resilience at the time (Fakoor et al, 2013; Pettit et al, 2013). While increasing supply chain resilience,
supply chain scenarios were evaluated using a simulation technique (Carvalho et al, 2012). Similar to
this, (Colicchia et al., 2010) employed simulation to study how to increase supply chain resilience in
relation to global purchasing. Spiegel et al. (2012) employed modeling on their end to analyse resilience
performance in relation to lead-time. In order to handle the unpredictability of interruption in robust
systems, a probabilistic strategy was employed in the end (Abolghasemi et al, 2015; Cardoso et al, 2015).
In light of the literature study, we observe that several supply chain resilience challenges have been
taken into consideration. As a result, both quantitative and qualitative research examined measuring
and defining resilience (Soni et al, 2014; Fakoor et al, 2013; Pettit et al, 2013; Spiegel et al, 2012). Nearly
mechanistic and quantified techniques were used to cope with the difficulty of designing and planning
for durable supply chains (Fiksel, 2003; Kristianto et al, 2014; Gong et al, 2014; Cardoso, 2015; Munoz et
al, 2015). It addressed choosing robust strategies, resilient situations, and resilient providers (Adtiya,
2014; Rajesh, 2015; Soni, 2014 and Xiao, 2014). Optimal source part selection and quantity ordering for
scheduling logistics flow were rarely discussed in literature (Sawik et al, 2013). The research that
examined the relationship between supply chain resilience and susceptibility was presented in Colicchia
et al. (2010), Pettit et al. (2010), Pettit et al. (2013), and Jüttner et al. (2011). Table 1 provides a summary
of the papers, measurements, and and levels of analysis of the supply network disruption and resilience

2.1. Green Supply Chain Management Practices

The GSCM approach is being promoted by academics and professionals as a workable way to enhance
the environment. GSCM was first put out in the early 1990s, but as seen by a spike in scholarly papers
around 2000, its popularity skyrocketed [15–17]. As it has become necessary for every firm to eliminate
ecologically hazardous activities and enhance communication between clients and green product
providers, GSCM has grown in popularity in recent years [3]. The terms "all-green procurement," "green
production," "green distribution," and "reverse logistics" were defined by Hervani and Helms [18]. GSCM
takes into account all phases of material and logistical management, as well as the disposal of post-
consumer waste, when making choices [19]. Srivastava [20] defined GSCM as the combination of supply-
chain management with sustainability thinking, which includes product design, sourcing, obtaining raw
materials, manufacturing procedures, and distribution of the finished product to the end user. A set of
inventory control rules, activities, and linkages were adopted as a result of worries about the natural
concerns of the environment and society in the design, acquisition, production, distribution, use,
recycling, and destruction of the firm's goods and services [21]. These GSCM guidelines, procedures, and
relationships offer workable options for minimising activities' negative environmental effects while
improving operational efficiency. The first driving forces for the usage of GSCM were environmental
deterioration, a lack of raw material supplies, and growing pollution levels [22], and by using it,
enterprises may now improve their performance [23]. It is therefore essential to determine how
implementation would impact small firms given the growing popularity of GSCM and the adoption of
green supply chain strategies by big businesses. To inspire them and help create a more sustainable
process, smaller enterprises need to be assessed and collaboratively involved in environmental
preservation [17]. Table 1 presents a comprehensive summary of the most recent studies on GSCM. In
earlier studies, it was discovered that GSCM practises come in many forms, including ecodesign, internal
resource stewardship, green purchasing, investment recovery, client cooperation, logistics, green
production, green data management, integration of suppliers, and waste management. However, after
doing a thorough literature analysis, in order to assess GSCM processes, We have chosen green buying,
ecodesign, procurement, and green systems engineering.