Sustainable development is defined in the Brundtl and 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: