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A methodology to select suppliers to increase sustainability within supply chains

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Abstract

Sustainability practice within supply chains remains in an early development phase. Enterprises still need tools that support the integration of sustainability strategy into their activity, and to align their sustainability strategy with the supplier selection process. This paper proposes a methodology using a multi-criteria technique to support supplier selection decisions by taking two groups of inputs that integrate sustainability performance: supply chain performance and supplier assessment criteria. With the proposed methodology, organisations will have a tool to select suppliers based on their development towards sustainability and on their alignment with the supply chain strategy towards sustainability. The methodology is applied to an agri-food supply chain to assess sustainability in the supplier selection process.

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Acknowledgements

The authors of this publication acknowledge the contribution of Project GV/2017/065 ‘Development of a decision support tool for the management and improvement of sustainability in supply chains’, funded by the Regional Valencian Government. Also, the authors acknowledge Project 691249, RUC-APS: Enhancing and implementing knowledge-based ICT solutions within high risk and uncertain conditions for agriculture production systems (www.ruc-aps.eu), funded by the European Union according to funding scheme H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Organisation, Research Centre on Production Management and Engineering (CIGIP), Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    María-José Verdecho, Faustino Alarcón-Valero, David Pérez-Perales, Juan-José Alfaro-Saiz & Raúl Rodríguez-Rodríguez

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  1. María-José Verdecho
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  2. Faustino Alarcón-Valero
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  3. David Pérez-Perales
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  4. Juan-José Alfaro-Saiz
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  5. Raúl Rodríguez-Rodríguez
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Correspondence to María-José Verdecho.

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Verdecho, MJ., Alarcón-Valero, F., Pérez-Perales, D. et al. A methodology to select suppliers to increase sustainability within supply chains. Cent Eur J Oper Res 29, 1231–1251 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10100-019-00668-3

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