Sustainable supply chain management in the chemical industry: Evolution, opportunities, and challenges

Chemical industries play a significant role in the global debate on reasons behind climate change and adverse social effect. It is necessary to understand as well as find ways to improve the sustainability aspects of the supply chain in the chemical industry. This study presents a systematic review through content analysis using "Five W" namely Why, When, Where, Who, and What; and "Two H" namely How and How much framework, to understand the evolution of sustainable supply chain in the chemical industry over past two decades. Using 145 selected articles, this study attempts to understand the research trend over journal outlets, preferred methodologies, mathematical tools, theoretical perspectives, and issues studied over various stages of growth across various economies. Finally, the SWOT framework has been used to understand the strength-weakness of Sustainable Supply Chain research in the chemical industry and map it to the opportunities-threat across multiple sub-industries. This framework is further used to develop the future scope of research by identifying theories, techniques/tool to overcome challenges across multiple issues in the Chemical industry's achievement of sustainability goal.