Due to the deterioration of global environment, increasing concerns of the overall condition of the natural environment have brought the attention on environmental conservation. As Purchasing Magazine (Atkinson, 2002) reported that “the most significant factor affecting supply, demand, pricing, and availability of solvents is the environmental issue”. As a result, for manufacturers, there is a need to take environmental issues into consideration in supply chain management in order to gain competitive advantage. On 1st February, 2007, Wal-Mart started the “Sustainability 360” program which aims to Integrate sustainability into its supply chain and even the operation as a whole (Larson, 2009). In the year 2009, Shanghai General Motors has been successful in reducing 100 tons of water, 8,000 kilowatts of energy, and more than 50,000 tons of greenhouse gas through its new “green supply chain planning”. As matter of fact, there are an increasing number of companies, like Wal-Mart and Shanghai General Motors have recognized the potential benefits by implementing green supply chain (Diabata A. and Govindanb k, 2011). This essay will first review the research about the concept of green supply chain, drivers for the implementation of GSCM and practices used in green supply chain. After that, some possible suggestion will be given for the design of next generation Logistics and supply chains.
A supply chain is various activities involved in transforming natural raw materials,resources and components into finished products or services (Nagurney,2006). According to Simchi-Levi and Kaminsky(2007), a successful supply chain is the integration and collaboration of manufacturers suppliers, warehouses and stores, which tries to cater to customers’ needs. Generally, production and manufacturing operations tend to be regarded as the enemy of environmental protection with the