Logistics service providers’ good practices for sustainable supply chain management.

Extended abstract Background Sustainable development, that entails considering the possibilities of future generations while satisfying the needs of the present ones, requires from the companies to do business but at the same time prevent or reduce the damages on environment and society as a whole (Bruntlandt et al., 1987). This commonly shared attention is partially guided by the need of transparency on environmental and social issues expressed by the multiple companies’ stakeholders (Siew, 2015). That is why a growing number of industries have been recently engaging into the initiatives that would express clearly their interest toward the issues of sustainability. In the current global scenario the incorporation of these aspects into the single companies daily routines is crucial, but some major efforts are needed since we deal with the supply chain competition (Sahay, 2003; Christopher 2005; Cozzolino, 2009; Massaroni and Cozzolino, 2012; Asby et al., 2012). Companies are embedded in the numerous external relationships that are crucial for the product manufacturing and service delivery. Formerly, the way in which these connections were established contributed directly to the success of supply chains in terms of quality, efficiency and effectiveness. Nowadays, as supply chains are called upon to accomplish the sustainability requirements, companies are assessed basing on their supply chain sustainability efforts and performance as well (Linton et al., 2007; Carter and Rogers, 2008). Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) - that presupposes the “voluntary integration of economic, environmental and social considerations with key inter-organizational business systems” - permits at the same time to “meet stakeholder requirements and improve the profitability, competitiveness, and resilience of the organization over the short- and long-term” (Ahi and Searcy, 2013, p.39). The SSCM is somehow the expression of corporate social responsibility, referring to: “integrating social and environmental concerns in their [companies’] business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis”(European Commission, 2001, p. 8). Purpose From a supply chain perspective sustainability depends on different actors and on relationships among them. The logistics service providers (LSP) contribution can be relevant due to their presence in different stages of supply chains. Furthermore, LSPs can invest in sustainability through innovations, which they can incorporate into their own organisation’s products/services and processes; and, subsequently share them with a large number of customers and clients they serve in the manufacturing and commercial fields. In doing so LSPs may multiply the positive effects of their sustainable activities for all the served clients, especially in business-to-business markets (Cozzolino, 2009; Massaroni and Cozzolino, 2012; Cozzolino et al., 2015), so that the improvement of logistics services can be assured during the entire sustainability journey. Moreover LSPs have the potential to help mitigate the three aspects that are most frequently mentioned in the literature as barriers to the implementation of sustainable supply chains, namely higher costs, complexity and the greater effort of coordination, insufficient, or even missing, communication between actors along the supply chain (Seuring and Muller, 2008). Much of the literature on LSPs and sustainability relate almost exclusively to environmental sustainability and eco-efficiency, and lack a more systemic approach that simultaneously includes the three dimensions - environmental, social and economic - and a network perspective of analysis along the supply chain instead of the alone single business view (Cozzolino et al., 2015). In fact, the potential of LSPs as enablers of sustainable management of the supply chain is not much debated in the foregoing research (Kudla and Klaas-Wissing, 2012; Colicchia et al., 2013). The aim of this paper is thus to examine how logistics service providers (LSPs) at global level implement the environmental and social sustainability internally and in their supply chains. Methodology Sustainable services offered by LSPs for sustainability have an important impact. Although the importance of the sustainability of services offered by LSPs emerges in various contributions, nevertheless there is still much to understand empirically in terms of specific actions taken by these actors within the three dimensions of sustainability and in a network perspective. To go deeper in this direction, it is interesting to analyse the growing trend of companies, which voluntarily express their commitment to sustainability through the activities of “sustainability reporting”. There are many tools that companies can adopt to communicate their efforts in doing business with environmental and social considerations (Siew, 2015). One of many possible framework to adopt for disclosure of these interests is Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) (Fernandez-Feijoo et al., 2014; Brown et al., 2009; KPMG, 2011; Manetti and Becatti, 2009; Nikolaeva and Bicho, 2011). Furthermore, many researchers have recognized it as most common standard worldwide (Supino and Sica, 2011; Marimon et al., 2012; Roca e Searcy, 2012). In 2013 the fourth generation of sustainability reporting guidelines-GRI G4 have been introduced. The G4 guidelines require from the companies to broaden their boundaries and to evaluate environmental and social impacts of their supply chains as well. The need to focus on overall supply chain performance derives from the fact that “the sustainability of an individual organization may, or may not, be compatible with the sustainability of society as a whole, which is attained by addressing social, economic and environmental aspects in an integrated manner” (Buck et al., 2014). This study follows a multiple cases approach (Yin, 1994), excellent for providing detailed explanations of best practices (Ellram, 1996), on all the LSPs operating at global level that are present in GRI-G4 database. Original value and implications The contribution of this paper is to extend and question the existing literature on LSPs and supply chain sustainability. Our research suggests that there are many opportunities for LSPs to improve sustainability internally and along the entire supply chain they belong. The results of this research may be of particular interest to academics and practitioners, supporting the creation of an agenda for the engagement in the realization of sustainable initiatives in the supply chain. Especially the support of sustainable LSPs to their clients is increasingly a requirement for the selection of the LSPs by the clients’ own business. Thus this study provides an insight into how LSPs direct their environmentally and socially efforts from their supply chain perspective. For multiple business realities, and particularly SME enterprises, that can be of interest: several good practices described in the present research can be the source of inspiration for these companies while pursuing the environmental and social sustainability. This is the first study that analyse the contribution of all the international LSPs to the (environmental, social and economic) sustainable supply chain management according to the latest guidelines published by GRI.