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The carbon emissions due to industrial production and market consumption activities are the major contributors to global warming. With the signing of UN Paris Accord 2016 on climate change, the world's major countries are devising measures to combat climate change and attain a sustainable, low-carbon future. Globalization demands companies not only to adopt greener manufacturing practices internally for reduced carbon footprint (CFP) but beyond its boundaries (i.e. its supply chain). This study aims to discuss the relationship between CFP and sustainable supply chain, as evident in the current literature and industry practices. It provides a total comprehension of past, present and future headings in the CFP area and its contribution to a sustainable supply chain.

A systematic literature review and analysis have been undertaken in supply chain sustainability and CFP. A bibliometric approach is adopted for this investigation, and one of the biggest computerized databases, “Scopus,” has been picked. In total, 37 articles have been zeroed in after a careful and watchful screening of firmly related topics.

Most researchers gave predominance to environmental impact among the three pillars of sustainability (economy, society and the environment) for a sustainable supply chain environment. Only a few researchers were motivated to cover social development and social responsibility aspects. This review highlights how managing a CFP is one of the significant attributes of sustainable development. Existing literature in the field of CFP and sustainability have been written on actual industry cases. Food, electricity and energy are some significant industries where supply chain sustainability successfully reduces carbon emission.

The theory-building strategy with recommendations on the conceptualization of a sustainable supply chain is limited in the literature. This study gives broad ideas on how organizations modified and redeveloped different tools and technologies to make their supply chain more sustainable. The strategic role of different carbon policies, environmental rules and regulations in the domain of CFP is also recognized in this work. This study highlights the biases of most of the researches toward applications than policy interventions. This study discusses the theoretical perspective about how CFP affects supply chain management and helps organizations and researchers develop a new set of approaches in handling CFP and other sustainability aspects.

Due to unceasing declination in environment, sustainable agro-food supply chains have become a topic of concern to business, government organizations and customers. The purpose of this study is to examine a problem associated with sustainable network design in context of Indian agro-food grain supply chain.

A mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model is suggested to apprehend the major complications related with two-echelon food grain supply chain along with sustainability aspects (carbon emissions). Genetic algorithm (GA) and quantum-based genetic algorithm (Q-GA), two meta-heuristic algorithms and LINGO 18 (traditional approach) are employed to establish the vehicle allocation and selection of orders set.

The model minimizes the total transportation cost and carbon emission tax in gathering food grains from farmers to the hubs and later to the selected demand points (warehouses). The simulated data are adopted to test and validate the suggested model. The computational experiments concede that the performance of LINGO is superior than meta-heuristic algorithms (GA and Q-GA) in terms of solution obtained, but there is trade-off with respect to computational time.

In literature, inadequate study has been perceived on defining environmental sustainable issues connected with agro-food supply chain from farmer to final distribution centers. A MINLP model has been formulated as practical scenario for central part of India that captures all the major complexities to make the system more efficient. This study is regulated to agro-food Indian industries.

The suggested network design problem is an innovative approach to design distribution systems from farmers to the hubs and later to the selected warehouses. This study considerably assists the organizations to design their distribution network more efficiently.

The present study investigates the impact of digital entrepreneurial education and training and its impact on the digital entrepreneurial intention (EI) through the mediating character of entrepreneurial competence.

A total of 391 survey responses were collected from employees using convenient and snowball sampling methods.

Digital entrepreneurial education and training showed a positive influence on entrepreneurial competence and EI, with entrepreneurial competence mediating the relationship between digital entrepreneurial education and training practices and EI.

This study is intended to assist the development of digital entrepreneurs. The implications of this study are also useful for governments, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors and various international development institutions.

The novelty of this study relates to exploring the relationship between digital entrepreneurial education and training, entrepreneurial competence and digital EI.

The study explores the perspectives of college students on the pedagogical shift as well as frequent transitions between online and offline learning modes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kerala, the most literate state in India.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,366 college students in Kerala during December 2021. A pre-tested questionnaire was sent using Google Forms to students of arts and science colleges. The authors analyzed quantitative data using descriptive statistics and qualitative data using thematic content analysis.

The reported advantages of online learning were increased technical skill, flexibility in study time, effectiveness in bridging the gap of the missed academic period and provision of attending more educational webinars. Students expressed concerns of increased workload, difficulty in concentration due to family circumstances, academic incompetency, uncleared doubts and addiction to mobile phones and social media during the online classes. The main advantages reported for switching to an offline learning mode were enhanced social interaction, effective learning, better concentration and reduced stress. The reported challenges of offline classes were fear of getting the disease, concern of maintaining social distancing and difficulty in wearing masks during the classes. The shift in offline to online learning and vice versa was perceived as a difficult process for the students as it took a considerable time for them to adjust to the switching process of learning.

Students' concerns regarding transition between different learning modes provide important information to educators to better understand and support the needs of students during the pandemic situations.