Various approaches to model sustainable supply chain management can be cited in literature. This paper begins by explaining the concept of a sustainable supply chain management through its three pillars: environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability. The paper then summarizes four different approaches to modelling a sustainable supply chain found in Literature. These are:

1. Using the Economic dimension: This involves economic issues and includes aspects of costs and revenues. Researches in this dimension follow a Life cycle Assessment (LCA) approach.
2. Using the Environmental dimension: Here energy demand and CO2 emissions are chief criteria under observation. Here too one can find LCA based approaches towards modelling the sustainable supply chain.
3. Using the Social dimension: The social dimension includes aspects such as Corporate Social Responsibility and the relationship which business needs to have with society including aspects such as income redistribution, unemployment etc.
4. Integrating all dimensions: This is perhaps the most important approach to model a sustainable supply chain. Most often, this studies aspects of trade-offs between the three dimensions