Collaborative mechanisms for sustainability-oriented supply chain initiatives: state of the art, role assessment and research opportunities

Whether from government policies, customer expectations or personal beliefs, there is increasing pressure on firms and their supply chains to adopt sustainable practices. Manufacturing companies are particularly targeted, for example, to reduce CO₂ emissions, offer sustainable products, etc. Research in this field has significantly increased in recent years. Most research states the importance of collaboration with upstream and downstream entities as a critical success factor when aiming for a sustainable supply chain and proposes various collaborative mechanisms (CMs) to enable firms in the implementation of a sustainability-oriented initiative. The goal of this paper is to investigate the role of collaboration in these initiatives and explore the proposed CMs via a systematic literature review method. A total of 404 articles were reviewed and the multitude of CMs proposed in the literature were classified into seven categories: relationship management, contractual and economic practices, joint practices, technological and information sharing practices, governance practices, assessment practices, and supply chain design. This systematic mapping of the field provides an in-depth view of the current state of research as well as research gaps. It also intends to help practitioners by highlighting the role played by these mechanisms in four phases of sustainable supply chain deployment.