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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.

Overconsumption of resources has become a global issue. To deal with resource depletion and mitigate these impending crises, the circular economy (CE) holds some promise. A wide range of performance measurements for CE have emerged over the years. However, with increasing complexity of supply chains, appropriate and potentially new performance measurements are needed for effective CE management. Blockchain is an innovative technology that may advance CE development. This chapter provides an overview of the potential linkages between blockchain technology and CE from sustainability perspectives – the specific focus will be on the performance measurement of reverse logistics activities. One of the main findings indicates that both blockchain and CE performance measurements – especially reverse logistics processes – are still evolving in both theory and practical developments. Future directions with a critical analysis including research and theoretical applications will conclude this chapter.

Economic incentives, government regulations, and customer perspective on environmental consciousness (EC) are driving more and more companies into product recovery business, which forms the basis for a reverse supply chain. A reverse supply chain consists a series of activities that involves retrieving used products from consumers and remanufacturing (closed-loop) or recycling (open-loop) them to recover their leftover market value. Much work has been done in the areas of designing forward and reverse supply chains; however, not many models deal with the transshipment of products in multiperiods. Linear physical programming (LPP) is a newly developed method whose most significant advantage is that it allows a decision-maker to express his/her preferences for values of criteria for decision-making in terms of ranges of different degrees of desirability but not in traditional form of weights as in techniques such as analytic hierarchy process, which is criticized for its unbalanced scale of judgment and failure to precisely handle the inherent uncertainty and vagueness in carrying out pair-wise comparisons. In this chapter, two multiperiod models are proposed for a remanufacturing system, which is an element of a Reverse Supply Chain (RSC), and illustrated with numerical examples. The first model is solved using mixed integer linear programming (MILP), while the second model is solved using linear physical programming. The proposed models deliver the optimal transportation quantities of remanufactured products for N-periods within the reverse supply chain.

This chapter proposes a multiobjective model to design a Closed Loop Supply Chain (CLSC) network. The first objective is to minimize the total cost of the network, while the second objective is to minimize the carbon emission resulting from production, transportation, and disposal processes using carbon cap and carbon tax regularity policies. In the third objective, we maximize the service level of retailers by using maximum covering location as a measure of service level. To model the proposed problem, a physical programming approach is developed. This work contributes to the literature in designing an optimum CLSC network considering the service level objective and product substitution.

Linear supply chain models often overlook the impact that end-users (i.e. people who “consume” or otherwise realize the intended value of the product or service) can have on core supply chain processes. As the global trade environment rapidly evolves, business and government leaders are seeking more regionalized, sustainable circular models that position “consumers” at the center of dynamic value creation and consumption networks. This chapter outlines some ways to leverage end-users of the value chain to inform development and sustainment of circular supply chain strategies and processes. First, we describe the economic, social, and ecological trends that motivate organizational leaders and managers to implement more circular supply chain models. We then provide specific ideas on how managers can leverage end-users to close, slow, narrow, intensify, and dematerialize core supply chain processes.

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.