Sustainable development is defined in the Brundtland Report of
the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED,1987) as ‘‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs’’. This concept plays an important role in businesses and supply chains of the 21st century. Supply Chain Management(SCM) is defined as the management of exchanges of materials and
information in the logistics process stretching from the purchasing of raw materials to the delivery of end-products to end customers,so linking several firms (Cooper, Lambert, & Pagh, 1997). SCM is thus responsible for material flows within human society as well
as the exchange of material and energy with the environment.The impacts of SCM should be determined in relation to the three main aspects of sustainability: environmental performance, social responsibility and economic contribution. Yet the focus today is mainly on the economic dimension, through the evaluation of some well-known or best practices. The APQC2 defines a best practice
as: ‘‘Any practice or experience which has proved its value or which is used in an efficient way in an organization, and can be applied in other organizations’’.
We retain that: