Measuring and assessing supply chain environmental performance through digitalization: the need to consider SC traceability, visibility and transparency

Greening the supply chain (SC) is becoming a key issue for companies. Therefore, measuring and assessing SC environmental performance to check if their objectives are achieved is a key sustainable SC management skill. Digital technologies, seen as ‘the solution’ for gathering the necessary data, are supposed to provide end-to-end SC traceability and visibility on, for example, CO2 emissions, proof of product origin, and energy consumption. However, since an SC is composed of multiple entities, there is an implicit hypothesis about transparency of information and processes. Based on a literature review, we analyse the complexity of the SC environmental performance measurement and assessment process. An illustration from the automotive industry highlights the importance of traceability, visibility and transparency - concepts that help to understand how digitalization is transforming SC environmental performance measurement and assessment. This leads us to propose a conceptual model and some practical guidelines to help companies in their greening-digitalizing projects.