IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v322y2025ics0360544225012848.html

A configuration of green and low-carbon strategy in clean energy economy: A perspective of supply chain management

Author

Listed:
  • Tian, Yihui
  • Ou, Lingjun
  • Guo, Jingwei
  • Chen, Zhen-Song
  • Chen, Zhaoxi

Abstract

In the era of clean energy economy, the leading enterprises have been adopting Green and Low-Carbon Supply Chain Management (GLC-SCM) as a key innovative strategy. However, existing studies lack a comprehensive framework to guide enterprises in different industries and regions in optimizing their GLC-SCM strategies. This study develops a methodology combining content analysis and cluster analysis to explore optimal GLC-SCM strategy configurations, addressing the gap in understanding industry-specific sustainability practices. We first construct an evaluation index system of GLC-SCM practices disclosed in the selected 154 global leading firm's environment related reports across different regions. Then, we utilize content analysis method to evaluate the implementation level of five aspects of GLC-SCM practices in different industries. Moreover, four groups of enterprises are clustered in different configurations of GLC-SCM strategies to adapt to the development of different industries. Our findings can help enterprises in the developing countries to identify the best GLC-SCM practice portfolio and improve their eco-efficiency in the context of the net-zero economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Tian, Yihui & Ou, Lingjun & Guo, Jingwei & Chen, Zhen-Song & Chen, Zhaoxi, 2025. "A configuration of green and low-carbon strategy in clean energy economy: A perspective of supply chain management," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 322(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:322:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225012848
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.135642
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225012848
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2025.135642?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Knut Koschatzky & Henning Kroll & Esther Schnabl & Thomas Stahlecker, 2017. "Cluster policy adjustments in the context of smart specialization? Impressions from Germany," Chapters, in: Dirk Fornahl & Robert Hassink (ed.), The Life Cycle of Clusters, chapter 9, pages 173-200, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Nihan Akyelken, 2011. "Green Logistics: Improving the Environmental Sustainability of Logistics," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(4), pages 547-548.
    3. Liu, Junjun & Hu, Houbao & Tong, Xun & Zhu, Qinghua, 2020. "Behavioral and technical perspectives of green supply chain management practices: Empirical evidence from an emerging market," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    4. Cucchiella, Federica & D’Adamo, Idiano & Lenny Koh, S.C. & Rosa, Paolo, 2015. "Recycling of WEEEs: An economic assessment of present and future e-waste streams," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 263-272.
    5. Josefina Murillo-Luna & Concepción Garcés-Ayerbe & Pilar Rivera-Torres, 2007. "What Prevents Firms from Advancing in their Environmental Strategy?," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 13(1), pages 35-46, February.
    6. Dirk Schoenmaker & Rens Van Tilburg, 2016. "What Role for Financial Supervisors in Addressing Environmental Risks?," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 58(3), pages 317-334, September.
    7. Sundarakani, Balan & de Souza, Robert & Goh, Mark & Wagner, Stephan M. & Manikandan, Sushmera, 2010. "Modeling carbon footprints across the supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 43-50, November.
    8. Singh, Gaganpreet & Pandey, Neeraj, 2018. "The determinants of green packaging that influence buyers’ willingness to pay a price premium," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 221-230.
    9. Klaiman, Kimberly & Ortega, David L. & Garnache, Cloé, 2016. "Consumer preferences and demand for packaging material and recyclability," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-8.
    10. Christoph G. Schmidt & Kai Foerstl & Birte Schaltenbrand, 2017. "The Supply Chain Position Paradox: Green Practices and Firm Performance," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 53(1), pages 3-25, January.
    11. John L. Tucker & Margaret M. Faul, 2016. "Industrial research: Drug companies must adopt green chemistry," Nature, Nature, vol. 534(7605), pages 27-29, June.
    12. Handfield, Robert & Walton, Steven V. & Sroufe, Robert & Melnyk, Steven A., 2002. "Applying environmental criteria to supplier assessment: A study in the application of the Analytical Hierarchy Process," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 70-87, August.
    13. Estampe, Dominique & Lamouri, Samir & Paris, Jean-Luc & Brahim-Djelloul, Sakina, 2013. "A framework for analysing supply chain performance evaluation models," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 247-258.
    14. Ki‐Hoon Lee & Ji‐Whan Kim, 2011. "Integrating Suppliers into Green Product Innovation Development: an Empirical Case Study in the Semiconductor Industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(8), pages 527-538, December.
    15. Ulf Schrader & John Thøgersen, 2011. "Putting Sustainable Consumption into Practice," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 3-8, March.
    16. Adam Ryszko, 2016. "Proactive Environmental Strategy, Technological Eco-Innovation and Firm Performance—Case of Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-20, February.
    17. Ahmad Rezaee & Farzad Dehghanian & Behnam Fahimnia & Benita Beamon, 2017. "Green supply chain network design with stochastic demand and carbon price," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 250(2), pages 463-485, March.
    18. Kjell Mårtensson & Karin Westerberg, 2016. "Corporate Environmental Strategies Towards Sustainable Development," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 1-9, January.
    19. Patrik J G Henriksson & Reinout Heijungs & Hai M Dao & Lam T Phan & Geert R de Snoo & Jeroen B Guinée, 2015. "Product Carbon Footprints and Their Uncertainties in Comparative Decision Contexts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-11, March.
    20. Xu, Song & Fang, Lei, 2020. "Partial credit guarantee and trade credit in an emission-dependent supply chain with capital constraint," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    21. Donna Marshall & Lucy McCarthy & Marius Claudy & Paul McGrath, 2019. "Piggy in the Middle: How Direct Customer Power Affects First-Tier Suppliers’ Adoption of Socially Responsible Procurement Practices and Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 154(4), pages 1081-1102, February.
    22. Qiu, Yan & Shaukat, Amama & Tharyan, Rajesh, 2016. "Environmental and social disclosures: Link with corporate financial performance," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 102-116.
    23. repec:kap:iaecre:v:13:y:2007:i:1:p:35-46 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Yang Chen & Guiyao Tang & Jiafei Jin & Ji Li & Pascal Paillé, 2015. "Linking Market Orientation and Environmental Performance: The Influence of Environmental Strategy, Employee’s Environmental Involvement, and Environmental Product Quality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 479-500, March.
    25. Ward, David O. & Clark, Christopher D. & Jensen, Kimberly L. & Yen, Steven T. & Russell, Clifford S., 2011. "Factors influencing willingness-to-pay for the ENERGY STAR® label," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1450-1458, March.
    26. Panwar, N.L. & Kaushik, S.C. & Kothari, Surendra, 2011. "Role of renewable energy sources in environmental protection: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 1513-1524, April.
    27. repec:aen:eeepjl:eeep4-2-cramton is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Awasthi, Anjali & Chauhan, Satyaveer S. & Goyal, S.K., 2010. "A fuzzy multicriteria approach for evaluating environmental performance of suppliers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 370-378, August.
    29. Seongtae Kim & Kai Foerstl & Christoph G. Schmidt & Stephan M. Wagner, 2022. "Adoption of green supply chain management practices in multi-tier supply chains: examining the differences between higher and lower tier firms," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 60(21), pages 6451-6468, November.
    30. Chonnikarn (Fern) Jira & Michael W. Toffel, 2013. "Engaging Supply Chains in Climate Change," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 15(4), pages 559-577, October.
    31. Wael Hassan El-Garaihy & Usama A. Badawi & Walid A. S. Seddik & M. Sh. Torky, 2022. "Investigating Performance Outcomes under Institutional Pressures and Environmental Orientation Motivated Green Supply Chain Management Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-23, January.
    32. Li, Yaoming & Zhang, Qi & Liu, Boyu & McLellan, Benjamin & Gao, Yuan & Tang, Yanyan, 2018. "Substitution effect of New-Energy Vehicle Credit Program and Corporate Average Fuel Consumption Regulation for Green-car Subsidy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 223-236.
    33. Jensen, S. G. & Skytte, K., 2002. "Interactions between the power and green certificate markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 425-435, April.
    34. Dominique Estampe & Samir Lamouri & Jean-Luc Paris & Sakina Brahim-Djelloul, 2013. "A framework for analysing supply chain performance evaluation models," Post-Print hal-01910995, HAL.
    35. Hossain, Md. Uzzal & Poon, Chi Sun & Lo, Irene M.C. & Cheng, Jack C.P., 2016. "Comparative environmental evaluation of aggregate production from recycled waste materials and virgin sources by LCA," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 67-77.
    36. Mangla, Sachin Kumar & Kumar, Pradeep & Barua, Mukesh Kumar, 2015. "Risk analysis in green supply chain using fuzzy AHP approach: A case study," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 104(PB), pages 375-390.
    37. Yuan Chen & Qinghua Zhu & Joseph Sarkis, 2023. "Green supply chain management practice adoption sequence: a cumulative capability perspective," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 61(17), pages 5918-5933, September.
    38. Jury Gualandris & Matteo Kalchschmidt, 2016. "Developing environmental and social performance: the role of suppliers’ sustainability and buyer--supplier trust," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(8), pages 2470-2486, April.
    39. Quader, M. Abdul & Ahmed, Shamsuddin & Ghazilla, Raja Ariffin Raja & Ahmed, Shameem & Dahari, Mahidzal, 2015. "A comprehensive review on energy efficient CO2 breakthrough technologies for sustainable green iron and steel manufacturing," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 594-614.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xin Wen & Jiaxin Wen & Zhibo Yu, 2025. "Whether Digital Villages Can Alleviate Towns–Rural Clean Energy Consumption Inequality in China?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-29, July.
    2. Tian, Yihui & Zhang, Qinyuan & Leung, Tiffany C.H., 2025. "Multi-factor driving paths of green supply chain management implementation in leading manufacturers: A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ozden Tozanli & Gazi Murat Duman & Elif Kongar & Surendra M. Gupta, 2017. "Environmentally Concerned Logistics Operations in Fuzzy Environment: A Literature Survey," Logistics, MDPI, vol. 1(1), pages 1-42, June.
    2. Hannah Santos & Gustavo Lannelongue & Javier Gonzalez-Benito, 2019. "Integrating Green Practices into Operational Performance: Evidence from Brazilian Manufacturers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-18, May.
    3. Yali Zhang & Jun Sun & Zhaojun Yang & Shurong Li, 2018. "Organizational Learning and Green Innovation: Does Environmental Proactivity Matter?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Nurlan Orazalin & Mady Baydauletov, 2020. "Corporate social responsibility strategy and corporate environmental and social performance: The moderating role of board gender diversity," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1664-1676, July.
    5. Alptekin Ulutaş & Ayşe Topal & Dragan Pamučar & Željko Stević & Darjan Karabašević & Gabrijela Popović, 2022. "A New Integrated Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model for Sustainable Supplier Selection Based on a Novel Grey WISP and Grey BWM Methods," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-20, December.
    6. Abbate, Stefano & Centobelli, Piera & Cerchione, Roberto, 2023. "From Fast to Slow: An Exploratory Analysis of Circular Business Models in the Italian Apparel Industry," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    7. Ji, Guojun & Gunasekaran, Angappa & Yang, Guangyong, 2014. "Constructing sustainable supply chain under double environmental medium regulations," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(PB), pages 211-219.
    8. Fu Jia & Yan Jiang, 2018. "Sustainable Global Sourcing: A Systematic Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-26, February.
    9. Dobos, Imre & Vörösmarty, Gyöngyi, 2014. "Green supplier selection and evaluation using DEA-type composite indicators," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 273-278.
    10. Andrea Chiarini, 2017. "Environmental Policies for Evaluating Suppliers' Performance Based on GRI Indicators," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 98-111, January.
    11. Oksana Seroka‐Stolka, 2023. "Towards sustainability: An environmental strategy choice, environmental performance, and the moderating role of stakeholder pressure," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(8), pages 5992-6007, December.
    12. Wang, Quan-Jing & Wang, Hai-Jie & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2022. "Environmental performance, green finance and green innovation: What's the long-run relationships among variables?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    13. Meng, Xiaoge & Yao, Zhong & Nie, Jiajia & Zhao, Yingxue & Li, Zenglu, 2018. "Low-carbon product selection with carbon tax and competition: Effects of the power structure," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 224-230.
    14. Nurlan Orazalin, 2020. "Do board sustainability committees contribute to corporate environmental and social performance? The mediating role of corporate social responsibility strategy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 140-153, January.
    15. Sun, Lihua & Bai, Chunguang & Sarkis, Joseph, 2024. "Environmental and social performance relationships to firm efficiency: Evidence from the semiconductor industry," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    16. Fethi, Sami & Rahuma, Abdulhamid, 2020. "The impact of eco-innovation on CO2 emission reductions: Evidence from selected petroleum companies," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 108-115.
    17. Dilip Kumar Sen & Saurav Datta & Siba Sankar Mahapatra, 2016. "A TODIM-Based Decision Support Framework for G-Resilient Supplier Selection in Fuzzy Environment," Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research (APJOR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 33(05), pages 1-40, October.
    18. Blanka Tundys & Tomasz Wiśniewski, 2018. "The Selected Method and Tools for Performance Measurement in the Green Supply Chain—Survey Analysis in Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-26, February.
    19. Sung Tae Kim & Hong-Hee Lee & Seongbae Lim, 2021. "The Effects of Green SCM Implementation on Business Performance in SMEs: A Longitudinal Study in Electronics Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-23, October.
    20. Wenwen Zhu & Zhiqiang Wang, 2018. "The Collaborative Networks and Thematic Trends of Research on Purchasing and Supply Management for Environmental Sustainability: A Bibliometric Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-28, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:322:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225012848. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.