Research on Sustainable Closed-Loop Supply Chain Synergy in Forest Industry Based on High-Quality Development: A Case Study in Northeast China

Abstract

Forestry construction is a fundamental issue related to sustainable economic and social development. However, the traditional development of forestry is currently facing the dilemma of insufficient resource supply, rising labor cost, and a low return on forestry investment, which needs to be transformed into high-quality forestry development. The general view is that synergistic development is an important way to achieve high-quality development. Based on this, the strategic planning and behavioral choices of forestry enterprises under synergistic development are explored. With the objectives of minimizing cost and environmental impacts, and maximizing social benefits, a multi-objective sustainable closed-loop supply chain network planning model is developed to study a real case of a forestry supply chain in northeastern China. A robust optimization approach is used to deal with the relevant uncertain parameters, and a weighted generalized epsilon-constraint approach is applied to solve the multi-objective problem, based on which a GA genetic algorithm is used to solve it. Based on the synergistic development perspective, four different scenario assumptions and sensitivity analyses are made to examine the multi-objective calculation results in this closed-loop supply chain network, and then to analyze the strategic decisions and specific measures for forest industry enterprises to achieve high-quality development. The model results show that realizing supply chain synergy is an effective way to achieve efficient business development in the future. Managers should also establish an acceptable balance between sustainability dimensions while focusing on building a collaborative supply chain development model, where small economic benefits can be appropriately ignored to reduce the harmful effects of the production process on the environment.