Logistics network design decisions are considered to be strategic in nature and address the
locations, numbers, and capacities of required facilities in a network as well as aggregate
material flow between them. Most of the network design mathematical models have been
constructed based on the facility location theory and applied extensively on the forward supply
chain in the past decade (refer to Melo et al. 2009 for review on facility location model). With an
increasing environmental concern, resource reduction, depletion of landfill capacity, strict
government regulations and the global pressure on issues leading to climate change; many
companies have started adopting the practice of using product recovery for various purposes.
Consequently, the focus has shifted towards greening the supply chain through an
environmentally friendly logistics network design. Henceforth, in the present review such
network is referred to as “Green Logistics Network Design (GrLND)”.
The GrLND primarily consists of all the network design issues which benefits the
environment, and consist of reverse logistics network as well as closed loop supply chain
networks. The consolidation of literatures developed in GrLND issues is an important step
towards the broader adoption and development of sustainability which concerns not only the
economic aspect but also the ecology as well as the societal aspects. Majority of the network
design models in GrLND are concerned with the single objective, hence present review attempts
to explore the following with the same: (i) the recovery option predominantly studied in the past,
(ii) application’s of the study in the past (case vs non-case specific), (iii) understand the
complexity of network structure studied in GrLND highlighting the optimization models used
with performance measures along with its components.
The paper is organized as follows: section 2 describes the methodology used to collect
and analyze the literature; Section 3 provides details of the basic issues that were identified and
studied in the literature on strategic planning of GrLND. Concluding remarks are provided in
section 4, along with an agenda for future research.