Sustainable supply chain management: using the Sri Lankan tea industry as a pilot study

Genuine sustainable supply chain management is now critical to achieve competitive advantage. Risk, uncertainty, strategy, innovation, relationship, infrastructure, regulation and technology are typically historically important areas that have a strong impact on sustainable SCM. These factors have been studied within manufacturing sector in developed countries; there is a lack of research on agri-supply chain in developing countries with respect to the concept of sustainable SCM. Therefore, this research tries to map the tea supply chain and identify the influencing factors and their performance on sustainable SCM in the tea supply chain in Sri Lanka. Importantly, early research suggests that mapping the tea supply chain represents a significant research gap not only in agri-supply chain but also supply networks in general. Key words: agri-supply chain, performance, supply chain management, sustainability, sustainable supply chain management, tea