A sustainable joint economic lot size model for supplier selection under carbon emissions: A case study

Abstract

Selecting suppliers strategically is a critical challenge in supply chain design, particularly in a dynamic global marketplace where maintaining competitiveness and sustainability is essential. Supplier location is a key factor that significantly impacts supply chain sustainability. Hence, this study proposes a new Sustainable Joint Economic Lot Size (S-JELS) model that integrates average annual cost and total amount of emissions associated with annual activities related to both buyer and supplier. The developed model accounts for costs and emissions from the buyer’s purchasing, inventory management, and transportation activities, as well as from the supplier’s production, packaging, and delivery processes. Additionally, the model incorporates various transportation modes, including shipping, trucking, and rail, to more accurately assess the environmental impact of different supply chain strategies. The proposed JELS model can support managers performing sustainable purchasing decisions and assess a sustainable supplier selection. The developed model is applied in a leather case study characterized by high resource intensity, significant environmental impacts, and complex global logistics to accomplish supplier selection between one domestic and one international supplier, aiming to determine the most sustainable strategy in terms of cost and emission.