Exploring Sustainability in OM and SCM: Setting the Research Agenda

About the Sustainability Forum

The Sustainability Forum is a new initiative of EurOMA that follows the path of the Service Operations Forum. It aims to be a meeting place forall researchers interested in the Sustainable Operations and Supply Chains area. The event fosters in-depth discussions of the field in a small setting. The aim is to generate new insights for research, teaching and business; to create collaboration opportunities; and to explore and discuss future research topics. Although the Forum’s audience is mainly academic, the involvement of practitioners is highly desirable and will be promoted.

The Forum will be a yearly event with envisaged follow-ups in Barcelona, Lancaster and/or Milan.

About the theme Sustainable Operations and Supply Chains

There is a large community of researchers that has entered the field of sustainability. Sustainability seems to be an umbrella for different elements of the triple bottom line including

• green operations,
• closed-loop supply chains,
• environmental operations, and
• socially responsible operations.
  

As with many new fields there are numerous questions to be answered for business and research. Typical questions to be discussed are:

• What type of theory on sustainable operations and supply chains needs to be developed?
• Which managerial approaches are employed in practice?
• How can sustainability in operations and supply chains be linked to other disciplines such as product development and human resources?