Integrating Sustainability into Green Supply Chain Management: Strategies, Challenges, and Innovations
Afshar Uddin Jubayer¹
¹Department of Industrial and Production Engineering, American International University- Bangladesh (AIUB), Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: 24-58405-2@student.aiub.edu
Md. Ehasanul Haque2
2Department of Industrial and Production Engineering, American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB), Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: ehasanul@aiub.edu
Abstract
Bangladesh’s supply chains, especially the textiles and RMG sector, face a practical challenge, such as growing while staying green. This study reviews 23 peer-reviewed sources through an MIT-SCM lens of systems thinking, digital innovation, and resilience, translating global lessons for local use. We focus on four levers managers can act on now: greener purchasing with supplier scorecards; cleaner, more efficient production; circular product design that plans for reuse; and reverse-logistics loops that bring materials back. These levers work when a few conditions line up: leadership that is accountable, policies that are coherent, HR practices that reward sustainable behaviour, and fit-for-purpose digital tools from the basic blockchain traceability to machine learning and big-data analytics. The upside is clear: greater transparency, lower waste, and progress towards circularity. The obstacles are equally clear: finance and data gaps, infrastructure bottlenecks, and uneven enforcement that hit SMEs hardest. We map where government, industry, and buyers can partner and show how ESG/SDG expectations can become daily routines. Examples include pilot programmes that help track products at the cluster level for export rules and simple tools for small and medium-sized enterprises. To track progress, we propose operational KPIs managers can own emissions intensity, waste-recovery rates, and supplier-compliance scores. Overall, the evidence points to systems-level change that ties technology to policy and everyday practice, so Bangladesh can build supply chains that are competitive, resilient, and genuinely responsible.
Keywords: Sustainability, Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM), Systems Thinking, Digital Transformation, Circular Economy, Supply Chain Resilience, Bangladesh SMEs.