Challenges of measuring sustainability performance in supplier selection : a multiple case study

Abstract

This study focuses on how the procurement and sourcing professionals measure the suppliers’ sustainability performance during the supplier selection, and the kind of challenges they face during this process. The findings are based on interviews with eight professionals from different industries and regions, and the company reports are used as secondary data, and the institutional theory is used as the main lens to analyse the findings. The findings of the study show that the professionals are not following a single and universal way to assess the sustainability performance of suppliers, while a mix of methods are used such as certifications, questionnaires, audits and site visits, and usually treat sustainability as a pass-or-fail filter rather than something scored throughout. Several challenges emerged from this study, but the prominent one is difficulty in verifying the claims of suppliers, which leaves a room for greenwashing.