Sustainable business practices are those that allow companies to increase their profit while still considering the triple bottom line of sustainability, which involves economic, environmental, and social aspects. There are a lot of studies exploring various aspects of supply chain practices. However, there remains a gap for the proposal of a complete framework concerning various industries. This research fills this gap by studying existing empirical and review studies. Based on a content analysis of 86 studies, 789 practices are derived and categorized, leading to a comprehensive classification of sustainable practices in supply chains. Moreover, the employed methods to analyze the data are investigated. The practices are cross-checked versus the studied industries showing the current sustainable industries. The details of the studied papers are presented in a comprehensive table. The sustainable framework showing the industrial solutions toward sustainable supply chains is divided into 38 minor practices classified into 11 main categories. This paper provides a novel interpretation of the sustainable solutions addressed by different industries and presents a new and updated classification of the literature identifying future directions. This offers many advantages for practitioners and researchers to transform a supply chain into an improved version in the bigger picture.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the benefits and challenges of implementing circular economy (CE), as well as shed light on the influence of procurement strategy in CE implementation in construction projects. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative research approach with abductive reasoning was adopted. The empirical data were collected from the construction industry in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Findings: The results reveal that clients, consultants and contractors have limited awareness, knowledge and motivation to implement CE in construction projects. The absence of incentives to design projects following CE principles, lack of involvement of contractors and suppliers, non-use of materials that use CE principles and current procurement strategies are the main challenges for the implementation of CE in the UAE. Originality/value: Previous research offers limited knowledge on CE and its implementation in construction projects particularly from a procurement strategy perspective. The findings of the study provide new knowledge of the benefits, challenges and role of procurement strategy for implementing CE. It is suggested that collaborative and partnering-based procurement methods are needed to facilitate the effective implementation of CE.

The automotive industry faces challenges because of the electrification of vehicles and the rapidly increasing need for electric vehicle batteries (EVBs). Raw materials availability is limited; however, there will also be a significant number of end-of-life (EOL) batteries. This creates various circular economy (CE) business opportunities for EVB manufacturers, third-party providers, and other stakeholders. However, not all CE solutions are sustainable or economically feasible. In this study, through the use of case studies, expert interviews, and a survey, we determined the current state of the EVB CE in Finland, the possible options for utilizing EOL vehicle batteries, and the greatest barriers for the EVB CE. We found that some EVB-related CE applications are not supported by the government and legislation, for example environmental regulations and building standards. CE opportunities include a shorter lead time for some components, which makes them attractive for EOL applications.

Industry 4.0—also known as the modern industrial revolution—nurtures close collaboration between various organizations so that they can come together for innovation. While aiming for digital transformation through such innovation, these organizations form certain interdependencies due to the pool of resources and tasks they agree to share to reach both common and independent goals. To understand those interdependencies, we studied a national innovation project in Finland called “Reboot IoT Factory,” which leveraged several resources, processes, and practices to successfully combine modern technologies in manufacturing in a competitive and sustainable way. The participants included in the project were factories, research organizations, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). An actor dependency model was used to analyze the observed interdependencies through survey and interview data. The results showed strong goal, task, and resource dependencies between the participants. A conventional understanding of advantages and opportunities, such as increased experience sharing and possible long-term synergies, is elaborated; moreover, an analysis of the disadvantages and risks caused by interdependencies, such as delays in tasks and possible inefficiency through unnecessary complexity, is also conducted.