OTM-452 Essentials of Supply Chain Management

DUE DATE: 5 January 2022 11:55 pm

Assignment 3 Total Marks: 20

Review the literature on sustainable supply chain management and write a report on:
1. Develop a typology of risk factors affecting the distribution side of a business? (6)
2. What is sustainable supply chain management? What challenges the world is facing in
achieving the sustainable development in true spirits? (2+5)
3. What is reverse logistics? How can reverse logistics activities help achieve sustainability?
(2+5)

The main challenges that the world is facing in achieving sustainable development are:
1) Financial Incapability: The majority of the world is lacking sufficient resources to even meet
their nutritional requirements. This makes it difficult for developing nations to allocate
financial resources to matters such as sustainable cities, good health, gender equality, clean
energy and innovation. Prosperous countries keep on innovating, improving and
implementring SDGs while poor nations struggle, this creates a huge imbalance among
countries a present a bi polar world.
2) Natural calamities: Natural occurences such as floods, fires, earth quakes, tsunamis and
volcanos has devastating effect on thr progress toward sustainabiklty. This is because these
unforeseen events not only open new fronts to governments but also reverse the progress
previously acheieved (UN). The government that was now in a good condition to fund
lucrative SDG oriented projects in now faced with the situation where they have to feed and
provide shelter to displaced populace.
3) Conflicts & Wars: Sustainable development is not possible in countries that are war trodden
because the government of such countries have other priorities on hand such as procuring
advance ammunitions, acquiring nukes, and spending their major financial resources to
make their defense impregnable. Moreover various watchdogs such as WHO, Amnesty and
UN are not allowed to carry out fair assessment of development parameters. Recently the
Taliban regime in Afghanistan banned women higher education which is an important
sustainable development goal.
4) Short-term governmental benefit: This challenge can easily be validated with the case study
of Pakistan. Every government in Pakistan is inclined toward only initiating those projects
that could be implemented in their own regime. This forces incumbent governments to
overlook long term projects that are usually entailing the essence of sustainable
development. The overhaul of education and development of industries are the projects
that are of strategic importance and every government put these projects at backend.
5) Bad Governance, Red Tapism & Corruption: Developing countries receive most of their
grants from other countries and foreign institutions such as Asian development bank, World
Health organization, International monetary funds and United Nations (Adhikari, 2018). The
money received through these sources is often mismanaged and no accountability takes
place. Moreover, the developing countries are adherent to their bureaucratic system
imposed on them by their former colonial masters. This system creates so much hurdles
that very rarely do we get to see some productive practical achievement.
6) Lack of awareness & Cultural sensitivity: This is one of the biggest problems for
governments worldwide. A bigger chunk of the world is reluctant to acknowledge the
problem and considers nature to always facilitate their existence. Religious beliefs and
cultural sensitivity is also a hurdle in achieving sustainable development. For example, many
Muslims are indifferent to the concept of family planning and population control.

Reverse logistics is a practice that helps businesses cut down on the amount of material they
consume while increasing efficiency and environmental friendliness. If you think about it
specifically, you can compare it to the reverse distribution of materials among channel
members. Reverse logistics is viewed more comprehensively when there are fewer materials in
the forward system, reuse of resources is available, and recycling is made easier (Carter, 1998).
Reverse logistics is of significant importance due to its potential in regenerating value from the
focal product. Customer awareness and social responsibility are novel and important drivers for
reverse logistics along with the traditional drivers of legislation and directives (Pokharel, 2009).
Reverse logistics could also be simplistically explained as the movement of goods from the
point of consumption to point of origin, or the inward or backward movement of goods in a
supply chain. The reverse movement can be in the form of 1) Inward disposal 2) Recycling of
core product or packaging substances 3) Upgradation or repair 4) Faulty product 5) Wrong
order delivered. The RL can help achieve sustainability in following ways:

Sharma, 2021. The various components of disposition decisions in the retail industry.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277239092100007X
Establishment of strategic ties: If a company allows reverse logistics to its customers, althought
superficially it might seem an additional cost burden on focal firm but in reality it increases the
trust of customer in a company, and subsequently increases reveneue. Such customers feel
valued and are willing to come back again for future contracts. This increases the sustainability
of business and hefty momentous profits of a firm are trade off with constant long term
relations and profits.
Reduction of waste: In order to be environmentally friendly and sustainable, company keep
tracking the waste they produce closely. If company allows the policy of reverse logistics it
make sure that their faulty products are not discarded in dust bins but are returned back to
reuse maximum of the material thus producing less waste and reducing the exponential
procurement of natural resources for manufacturing.
Reuse, Remanufacturing, Refurbishing & Recycling: Aftermarket supply chain also known as
sustainable reverse logistics collects material at the end of life for refurbishment, reuse,
remanufacturing, and recycling. The refurbishment extends some additional years to the life of
the product, recycling and reusing stops companies and users from spending more natural and
financial resources, and remanufacturing serves both mentioned functions. These all processes
are strongly linked to the environmental and financial sustainability of every stakeholder
involved (Golden, 2019).
Improved Profitability: When reverse logistics is properly implemented it can reduce certain
costs such as administrative, transportation, and support and increases customer satisfaction
and retention. This improves efficiency in supply, optimizes product flow in both directions, and
thus increases profit.
Environmental sensitive disposal: Even if the reverse order is not repairable and resalable, It is
used by companies to disassemble, sort, and segregate parts by product type which eventually
helps in environmental sensitive disposal specially of the toxic and radioactive materials.

References
Adhikari, O. (2018, August). Sustainable Development and its Challenges in Developing Countries.
Retrieved from International young nature friends : https://www.iynf.org/2018/08/a-guide-to-
sustainable-development-and-its-challenges-in-developing-countries/

Carter, C. (1998). Reverse Logistics: A review of the litreature and framework for future investigation.
Journal of Business Logistics. Retrieved from
https://www.proquest.com/openview/4e4bf4c153655adf45b96945b43543f4/1?pq-
origsite=gscholar&cbl=36584
Golden, J. S. (2019). Sustainability and Reverse Logistics. MDPI, 03. Retrieved from
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/logistics/sections/reverse_logistics#:~:text=Sustainable
%20reverse%20logistics%2C%20also%20referred,for%20reuse%2C%20recycling%20and
%20returns.

Pokharel, S. (2009, Feb). Perspectives in reverse logistics: A review. Science Direct, 53(4), 175-185.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2008.11.006

UN. (n.d.). Challenges to Sustainable Development. Retrieved from

https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/financial-crisis/sustainable-development.html