Greening versus resilience: A supply chain design perspective

This paper investigates the extent to which supply chain greening and buttressing (building robustness) strategies are supportive or conflicting. A supply chain design model is introduced which uses an environmental performance scoring approach and a robustness measure to explore the relationship between greening and buttressing. Potential tradeoffs to develop robustly green and greenly robust supply chains are evaluated. Data from a multinational apparel company is used. Results show both greening and buttressing can be costly, green supply chains are most sensitive to disruption, robust supply chains have strong long term benefits, and buttressing a green supply chain is a good investment.