A Review of Optimal Designs in Relation to Supply Chains and Sustainable Chemical Processes

With the emerging importance of balancing environmental, social, and economic objectives within a company setting, growing awareness of planning of supply chains and sustainable optimal design has been brought into perspective. An immense amount of research has been devoted to this sector, in hopes of capturing these objectives to ensure long term sustainability. Among some of the approaches that have been developed, product design, inventory management, product recovery, production planning with an emphasis on remanufacturing, reverse logistics, and supply chains that are closed-looped have been given additional attention in various pieces of literature. We will review and analyze some of the research that has surfaced in regards to sustainable chemical processes along with supply chain design. Focus will be given to three main areas, (i) waste management and energy sufficient sustainable supply chains, (ii) sustainable supply chains and their effect on the environment, (iii) sustainable water management principals. The challenges that these three sectors face have been summarized, and all future opportunities have been highlighted. Environmental sustainability is an issue that receives a lot of attention in the press, journals, and media. Most of the discussions surrounding this debate focus on the environmental impacts that organizational supply chains have on the environment. The goal of this paper is to further investigate the environmental impact concerns, and how these concerns are impacting the operational and strategic management of company supply chains. The research we have complied is intended to give an overview of the practices that companies have adopted and to clarify that further research is still in the midst of being conducted.