Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Sustainable Supply Chain Financing Decision Based on Triple Bottom Line Theory

Abstract

In recent years, sustainable supply chains that balance economic development and the environment have become an inevitable focus for many businesses and industries. Supply chain finance as the core driving force for supply chain development, plays a vital role in resolving any financing difficulties that exist in many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain. However, most SME supply chain financing assessments currently use economic indicators as the sole measure of the evaluation system and rarely consider sustainability. While existing supply chain financing decision-making systems can resolve SME financing problems to some extent, the one-sided pursuit of maximum economic benefits is contrary to sustainable development and does not assist financial institutions in avoiding finance risks. Therefore, this paper, based on the theory of the triple bottom line (economy, environment, and society) from a sustainable development perspective, innovatively proposes an SME financing evaluation model for supply chain finance that applies a fuzzy multi-criteria evaluation method combined with Topsis. Additionally, at the end, an example is given to demonstrate model validity and evaluate the best possible SME financing model for financial institutions.