Emergy Analysis and Supply Chains

Abstract

The growth in stakeholder pressures, broader sustainable supply chain management practices, and new economic models such as circular economy, has made sustainability a priority for organizations and their supply chains. To be able to manage their activities, programs, processes, and strategies, organizations have adopted and developed performance measures. Unlike other performance measures, emergy analysis quantitatively provides a real value for the work of nature to evaluate performance beyond the traditional measures that have been traditionally presented in the supply chain literature. This chapter offers an introductory explanation of how and what emergy analysis can offer in evaluating the environmental performance of supply chains. It will also consider not only the capabilities of emergy analysis but also the limitations and much-needed research to advance both fields, EA and SSCM.