Prioritizing sustainability indicators in the coffee supply chain via the fuzzy SAW method

Purpose This research identifies, classifies, and prioritizes sustainability indicators for the Colombian coffee supply chain. Given the industry’s challenges and growing international demand, the study aims to enhance supply chain sustainability by analyzing the most relevant variables based on global standards. Design/methodology/approach Indicators selected from a literature review were assessed by experts using a fuzzy scale to address subjectivity. A fuzzy simple additive weighting (SAW) method then employed to prioritize the indicators, with final weights and rankings obtained though Minkowski-base defuzzification. Findings Forty four indicators were refined and evaluated by 15 experts. These indicators were ranked by importance, allowing for their specific prioritization within social, environmental, and economic sustainability dimensions. The results highlight a subset of high impact indicators that are closely linked to productivity enhancement, performance management, and operational decision making across the coffee supply chain. Research limitations/implications The primary limitation of this study pertains to the expert selection process and the collection of Likert-scale assessments. Although 25 experts were initially invited, time constraints prevented full participation. However, the final panel of 15 is considered methodologically sufficient given their extensive expertise in the coffee supply chain. Future research could evaluate methodological alternatives, such as excluding expert weighting or developing novel approaches to assess expert influence. Additionally, other multi-criteria decision-making methods, such as Fuzzy TOPSIS or DEMATEL, warrant further investigation. Practical implications From a practical standpoint, the proposed prioritization offers a performance-oriented decision support tool for stakeholders across the coffee supply chain. Rather than managing extensive and unprioritized indicator sets, coffee growers, cooperatives, industry organizations, and policy makers can use the ranked indicators to focus improvement efforts on high impact variables. Specifically, the results suggest prioritizing investments in productivity enhancing practices, quality and process management, workforce training, soil conservation, and water efficiency. By concentrating managerial actions on the most influential indicators at each stage of the supply chain, practitioners can achieve faster and more effective improvements in sustainability while simultaneously strengthening productivity and overall performance. Originality/value Prioritizing economic, environmental, and social indicators enables the identification of key variables and their impact on outcomes, allowing stakeholders to concentrate improvement actions on the factors most critical to sustainability, productivity, and performance in the coffee supply chain. From an academic perspective, this study contributes to the productivity and performance management literature by operationalizing sustainability through a ranked set of indicators that explicitly link indicator level variables to performance outcomes. Methodologically, the integration of fuzzy SAW, expert weighting, and Minkowski defuzzification provides a structured and replicable performance-oriented decision framework that extends prior sustainability indicator studies within agri-based supply chains.