Green Supply Chain Management Research Trends and Linkages to UN Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

Growing awareness about environmental responsibility among businesses and policymakers has increased interest in Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM). For the first time, using the SDG mapping algorithms, this article focused on 7009 publications from 2013 to 2022 mapped explicitly to 17 SDGs. This study uses bibliometric and science mapping techniques to create a detailed mapping between GSCM research and SDGs. This study created an SDG citation network to show how specific SDGs are related to GSCM practices. The most mapped SDGs in this study are SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 17 (Partnership for the Goals). Our results showed that GSCM research mainly focuses on three thematic areas: industry 4.0 and sustainable supply chains, GSCM practice coordination, and sustainable environmental policy management. This also includes integrating the circular economy into GSCM, sustainable sourcing, supply chain resilience, digital transformation in GSCM for better environmental performance, and the social impact of GSCM. A shift towards integrating sustainability into supply chain processes has been found. Environmental management, performance monitoring, and new technologies like Industry 4.0 and AI have been used to support the SDGs. International interest and collaboration in GSCM research can be seen from the bibliographic coupling study covering countries like Europe, Western Countries, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe. This study shows how GSCM can directly address global challenges identified by the United Nations by mapping GSCM research to specific SDGs.