Green supply chain research: past, present, and future

In the past several decades, great strides have been made to incorporate the ethical and environmental responsibilities into the core culture of today’s business world. With the increased attention paid to such responsibilities, a growing number of firms have explored “greening” (environmental-friendly) initiatives as their competitive strategic weapons. This paper traces the evolution of green supply chain research, synthesizes the past and current research efforts to develop a viable green supply chain strategy, and then proposes promising future research themes related to this strategy.