Environmental and economic assessment of fresh fruit supply chain through value chain analysis. A case study in chestnuts industry

TLDR

Environmental sustainability of supply chains has attracted growing research and industry focus, prompting firms to demand green practices from suppliers to reduce overall environmental impacts. The study aims to embed environmental concepts into the value‑chain analysis of fresh chestnut supply chains, simultaneously assessing sustainability improvements and their economic effects. Researchers defined environmental KPIs, built a logistic environmental model, and evaluated the carbon footprint of the chestnut supply chain along with potential improvement measures. Analysis of multiple improvement scenarios revealed differing environmental and economic outcomes, with some options achieving substantial carbon reductions while preserving profitability. Acknowledgements: the authors thank reviewers and the Sannio region firm for providing data access.

Abstract

AbstractIn recent years, both researches and practitioners have devoted attention to environmental sustainability of supply chain (SC), while firms have modified their marketing strategies highlighting green practices in productive and logistic processes among the features of their products. These behaviours move firms to require to their suppliers the adoption of green measures and practices to reduce environmental impacts within the entire SC. This paper presents the results on an exploratory case-based research on the SC of fresh chestnuts aimed to integrate environmental concepts in the value chain approach, with a concurrent evaluation of sustainability improvements and their economic impact. Within the value chain configuration, environmental KPIs are defined for the specific case study and a logistic environmental model is developed. Within the model, an evaluation of carbon footprint for this SC is proposed, along with its possible improvements. Results include the analysis of different improvement scenarios and their comparison.Keywords: green supply chain managementchestnut value chaineconomic impactenvironmental assessment AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank the Editors, Dr Stephen J. Childe, Prof. Bjørn Andersen and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive remarks and comments in managing and review the paper. We are also grateful to the Firm in Sannio region, Italy, for the possibility of using the data of the industrial case study.