Unveiling the supply chain: the interaction of sustainability, transparency and digital technologies

Firms are increasingly being held responsible by the public for their supply chain sustainability while they lack information on their suppliers’ processes. Moreover, they may not even know their sub-suppliers, let alone have information on their level of sustainability. This significantly reduces the capability to address sustainability challenges along the supply chain. Based on a multi-case-study approach from the food and textile industries, we analyse how digital technologies enable sustainability through improving transparency at the supplier and product level. We examine four important properties of digital technologies: scalability, consistency, accessibility and interconnectivity. The results suggest that digital technologies can overcome some important sustainability barriers but often are not sufficient alone or result in new challenges. We identify the need for industry collaborations, standards, external control and legislative pressure to support the dissemination and standardization of digital technologies and to address the persisting barriers to transparency and sustainability.