Sustainable Operations and Supply Chains: A Framework for Triple Bottom Line

With a heightened international concern about climate change, more manufacturers are adopting green practices and offering green options in their product line. The image built from such initiatives tremendously helps companies to set a foothold in markets where the purchasing behavior of environmentally conscious consumers is guided by the green reputation of a company. This paper evaluates the risks from a non-green profiling and analyses the tacit assumptions under environmental activism to propose that more customers would be willing to pay for green products if environmental activism is approached from a holistic perspective. The paper discusses the main features of green operations, green marketplace, green facilities and green product design. Based on this discussion, the paper proposes a green manufacturing framework consisting of a sequential supply chain model and a balanced score based operational model that organizations can benefit from. Finally, concluding remarks and further extensions are provided.