A Model for Conceptualising Green Logistics and its use for exploring RFIDs in 'Greening' Supply Chains

Integrating environmental considerations into supply-chain management has become an increasingly important issue for industry, government and academic research. Supply chain managers are being required to respond to the challenges of new legislation, standards and regulations; changing customer demands; drivers for efficiency, cost effectiveness and return on investment; while simultaneously being „green‟. Facing the central tension between business and environmental drivers is difficult, but critical to understanding how developments, such as RFID technologies can be incorporated to deliver holistic solutions. This paper reviews contemporary discussions on the current state of supply-chain management and green logistics. It presents a model that combines a number of existing frameworks covering forward and reverse logistics as an approach to conceptualise green supply chains. The paper then illustrates how this combined model can be used to explore the potential of RFID technologies for „greening‟ supply chains.