This research explores the opportunities presented by COVID-19 for green supply chains' environmental practices and ecological sustainability performances in the healthcare sector. This study investigates the connections between uncertainty-fear of COVID-19, healthcare green supply chain management (GSCM), and the three pillars of a firm's sustainability performance (environmental, economic, and social). Moreover, this study examines the moderating role of social media usage (SMU) on the effect of uncertainty-fear of COVID-19 on healthcare-GSCM. When conducting the empirical part, this study uses the partial least squares structural equation modeling method based on a sample of 483 healthcare managers. The findings prove that the uncertainty-fear of COVID-19 has a beneficial impact on healthcare-GSCM. Besides, SMU moderates the relationship between uncertainty-fear of COVID-19 and healthcare-GSCM, indicating the importance of SMU in gathering information for the healthcare sector during COVID-19. Likewise, when interacting with healthcare firms' sustainability performances, healthcare-GSCM positively impacts environmental and social performances, though it has a negligible impact on economic performance. This study adds to the “social cognitive theory” by introducing the concept of uncertainty-fear of COVID-19. Furthermore, this research adds to the “resource-based view theory” and the “knowledge-based view theory” by exploring the SMU's role during the outbreak.

Purpose: This study aims to explore the pandemic's opportunities for enhancing the environmental practices of the food and beverages green supply chains and its effect on the supply chains' viability by exploring the relationship between fear and uncertainty of COVID-19, food and beverages green supply chain management (F&B-GSCM) and supply chains’ viability based on the two dimensions (robustness and resilience) and examine the moderating effect of innovative technology adoption like big data analysis (BDA) capabilities and blockchain technologies (BCT) on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on a sample of 362 F&B small and medium enterprises (SMEs)’ managers in the Egyptian market for data analysis and hypothesis testing. Findings: The empirical results show that the fear and uncertainty of the pandemic have a significant positive effect on green supply chain management (GSCM). Also, BDA moderates the relationship between fear and uncertainty of COVID-19 and GSCM. However, BCT do not moderate that relationship. Similarly, GSCM positively affects supply chain viability dimensions (robustness and resilience). In addition, F&B-GSCM significantly mediates the relationship between fear and uncertainty of COVID-19 and supply chain viability dimensions (robustness and resilience). Practical implications: Food and beverages (F&B) managers could develop a consistent strategy for applying BCT and BDA to provide clear information and focus on their procedures to meet their stakeholders' needs during COVID-19. Governments and managers should develop a consistent strategy to apply food and beverages supply chains (F&B SCs)' green practices to achieve F&B SCs' resilience and robustness, especially during the pandemic. Originality/value: The Egyptian F&B SCs have been linked directly with many European countries as a main source of many basic food and agriculture products, which have been affected lately by the pandemic. Based on the “social-cognitive,” “stakeholder” and “resource-based view” theories, this study sheds light on the optimistic side of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it also brings the concepts of F&B-GSCM, SC resilience, SC robustness and innovative technologies back into the light, which helps in solving F&B SC issues and helps to achieve their viability.