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Climate change and digitisation are unquestionably the two defining features of this era. Both present immense challenges with unimaginable consequences for humankind while promising enormous rewards for those who can adequately address their adverse effects. These two critical factors must be considered while establishing strategies for the businesses' future operations. Hence, post-pandemic, especially with the rise of online commerce, packages and documents are delivered around the globe nearly every day, propelling the logistics industry's growth. This is not the critical challenge in logistics, the issue of sustainability, particularly as the returns are increasing exponentially, leading to a significant impact on transportation is and its reliance on fossil fuel has made it a prime target for society's growing environmental concerns. Thus, real-time visibility, collaboration and integration in reverse logistics (RL) are imperative for business sustainability. The most applicable Industry 4.0 technologies in RL are the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, blockchain and digital twin that enable the defragmentation of the RL market.

This chapter analyses the technological impact of Industry 4.0 on RL. This research investigates the challenges faced by the logistics industry in the context of sustainability and how digital transformation can bring many potential benefits across the entire value chain. This chapter also presents a guidance for a framework based on the literature review that tends to favour the development of elastic logistics, implying improved company responsiveness to market conditions. The study contributes to the body of literature and the establishment of the framework for planning on the application of various Industry 4.0 technologies in developing eco-friendly and sustainable reverse logistics framework.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

This chapter discusses the profound and influential impact the construction industry has on the national economy, together with the huge negative effect it has on the environment. It argues that by adopting smart and industrialised prefabrication (SAIP), the Australian construction industry, and the construction industry globally, is well positioned to leverage the circular economy to advance future industries with less impact on our natural environment. It discusses aspects of the application of digital technologies, specifically building information modelling, virtualisation, augmented and virtual reality and 3D printing, coupled with reverse logistics as a proponent for advancing the circular economy through smart, digitally enabled, industrialised prefabrication. It further postulates a framework for SAIP for the circular economy.

The model and existing practice of the construction supply chain (CSC) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia was presented in this chapter. The policies and reports that support the practice of the CSC were examined in both countries. It was discovered from the review of literature that the UK has a more detailed report targeted at improving the CSC than Australia. However, both countries have a common factor affecting their CSC which originates from fragmentation experienced within their supply chain. Construction stakeholders in the UK and Australia believe that collaboration and integration are vital components for improving performance. The majority of the contractors in both countries embrace collaborative working for the sole purpose of risk sharing, access to innovation and response to market efficiency. However, most of the models developed for managing the CSC in the UK are built around building information modelling (BIM). Also, the reviewed studies show that supply chain management practice will be effective following the following principle: shared objectives, trust, reduction in a blame culture, joint working, enhanced communication and information-sharing. Finally, the UK has a more established framework and more CSC models compared to Australia.

This book chapter aimed to examine the relationships between green supply chain practices and environmental performance in Malaysian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The practices of green supply chain in achieving environmental performance have been one priority concerns in Malaysia. However, green supply chain practices adoption remains emergence.

This manuscript adopted the multiple regression analysis in investigating the green supply chain (GSC) practices and environmental performance's variables. The self-administered surveys were randomly disseminated to Malaysian SMEs and 59 responses were returned. The result theoretically ascertained the positive relationship between GSC practices and environmental performance measures.

The findings are in aligned with the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory that conceptualized the GSC practices and strategies to sustain the environmental performance within the SMEs. In a nutshell, these findings would serve as the research implications and recommendations to the scholars, industrial practitioners, and policymakers who are interested in these GSC practices and environmental performance. This would further serve as a guideline for companies that tend to implement these GSC practices for improving its environmental performance.

The research revealed that ‘eco-design and packaging’ and ‘reverse logistics’ are significant to environmental performance, but both ‘green procurement’ and ‘investment recovery’ are not significant to environmental performance. The literature gaps exhibited for this manuscript; hence, future studies should be carried out on supply chain practices and environmental performance since there is no prescriptive method in sustaining environmental performance that matches all conditions in Malaysian SMEs.

The earth’s carrying capacity cannot withstand the pace of consumption resulting from current economic models, mainly the linear economy (LE) built on a throwaway culture. In the last few decades, the concept of a circular economy (CE), aiming to design waste out of the economy and mimic ecosystems, emerged as a strong alternative to LE. Being at the heart of the economic landscape, supply chains (SCs) need to respond to the necessary shift to CE. In so doing, the planning and execution of circular supply chains (CSCs) require a broader comprehension of CE and more sophisticated and large-scale analytical decision models. This chapter surveys extant literature on available best practices and quantitative models for sustainable supply chains (SSCs) and offers a new definition of CSC. Mapping on the knowledge extracted from this classification, potential gaps and strengths in the literature are identified. Key research papers on the “closed-loop” and “open-loop” ends of CSCs are highlighted. Challenges in developing CSC performance indicators and prescriptive models are emphasized.