Despite the increasing interest toward environmental issues in the freight transport and logistics service sector, a comprehensive and updated assessment of the existing literature is still missing. This paper aims to fill this gap by presenting the results of a systematic literature review of publications in the area of environmental sustainability in third-party logistics service providers (3PLs) between the years 2000 and 2016. The review offers insight into the critical dimensions of green matters in transport and logistics service companies using an analytical framework based on the following five topic areas: influencing factors, green actions and the impact on performance, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools supporting the green actions, energy efficiency in road freight transport and shipper’s perspective and collaboration. The results indicate that, despite the number of published papers having grown significantly from 2008 onward, some areas remain highly under-researched such as ICT and performance measurement. Several research gaps have been identified in each topic area, and a set of propositions forming an agenda for future research directions has been suggested.

In the last several decades, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) reverse supply chain management has increasingly gained more attention due to the development of an environmental awareness, the rapid raise of e-wasted products and the EU regulations. In particular, although the new EU WEEE collection target has not been reached by many EU countries, several studies show that an optimized WEEE wastes management processes could represent a relevant way to achieve economic, environmental and social benefits expected by the adoption of circular economy approaches. According to this, the paper aims to evaluate the extent to which the current Italian organization of the WEEE management system and the related legislation are able to support the achievement of the targets defined by EU with a specific focus on the collection centers (CCs) which play a key role being the initial point of the WEEE reverse logistic cycle. An illustrative analysis based on the transition probability matrix regarding both the e-waste collecting performance and the distribution of collecting centers in the Italian provinces is illustrated. Furthermore, we have analyzed the presence of a correlation between the WEEE collection rate and the presence of the CCs in different provinces in order to better comprehend the role that can play both the investments in CC system and other soft measures in achieving the WEEE collection targets. Results show that the current Italian organization of the WEEE management system and the related legislations are not so effective in supporting the achievement of EU WEEE collection targets at the national level, although some geographical areas and provinces outperform the EU targets.

Purpose: Pursuing sustainable development has become a necessity for all types of businesses, owing to the increasing sensitivity of stakeholders towards pollution and environmental degradation related to economic activities. To sustain this approach, investments supporting green innovations (GIs) are required. The paper investigates how stakeholders affect the choices of companies to pursue sustainable development objectives through the use of GIs.Design/methodology/approach: A sample of 222 innovative Italian SMEs was collected and analysed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique and the importance performance map analysis.Findings: The authors found that the stakeholders with not-contractual ties with SMEs affect GIs. Among stakeholders with not-contractual ties only workforce represents a strong stimulus to eco-innovate. Anyway, contrary to expectations, public administrations exert a negative influence; that is, they appear to hinder SMEs approach towards GIs.Practical implications: This paper contributes to filling the knowledge gaps about the factors stimulating innovative SMEs' investments in GIs. Specifically, by analysing the stakeholders' influences, many policy indications emerge, such as extending facilities and regulations, encouraging partnerships and networking and attracting private and institutional investors.Originality/value: Until now, the prominent interest of researchers and policymakers has been focused almost exclusively on large manufacturing corporations because of their higher ecological footprints and the belief that SMEs are supposed to be mainly followers rather than first adopters of innovations. But in many international areas, the role of SMEs is widely predominant, and these SMEs chiefly operate in the service sectors.