Investigation of relationships in a supply chain in order to improve environmental performance

This paper presents a methodology to combine environmental assessment information and knowledge on supplier relationships. The work is based on a case study of production of a chair. The methods used are shown to be effective to reduce the number of suppliers that should be managed from an environmental point of view and also obtain an overview over which suppliers that can be influenced. It is also shown how suppliers with the presumably highest potential for improvements are identified. The end-producer can thus obtain control over most of the environmental impact originating from upstream activities through a limited number of suppliers. In the case study the number of suppliers that should be managed is reduced to 3. Small and medium sized enterprises have often limited possibilities to influence the suppliers, but in this paper it is demonstrated how this problem can be overcome by cooperative purchasing within a branch of industry with a common demand for information from the suppliers.