Dear Vania Baldi

I am not aware of particular studies, however the following companies were recently listed in Fortune’s 2015 ‘Change The World’ list of companies who are having an impact on major global social or environmental problems as part of their profit making strategy. It could be worth looking to see if there are any studies that have been carried out on any of these particular companies and their usage of materials from local suppliers – I have listed a few of the technology or ICT companies that were on the 'Change the World' list.

Cisco – outsourcing collaboration between its Israeli office and Palestinians with tech skills. This is the project highlighted by the Fortune list, but Cisco may be an interesting company to look at in relation to their community activities and its linkages to local supply chains.

M-Kopa – pay-as-you-go solar power machines. Their usage is expanding across East Africa.

Philips – building solar-powered LED complexes in Africa.

Intel – changed its policy on microprocessors that are made with minerals from conflict zones, it currently states that its microprocessors are conflict-mineral free. I know that various NGOs (e.g. Global Witness) have campaigned against conflict-minerals so there may be some studies around this.

Kind regards,

Jo-Anna

Hi,

Could the following paper help ?

RFID technology adoption and supply chain performance: an empirical study in China's logistics industry

By: Lin, Chieh-Yu; Ho, Yi-Hui

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Volume: 14 Issue: 5 Pages: 369-378 Published: 2009

Context Sensitive Links Close AbstractClose Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study the factors influencing the adoption of RFID technology and the relation between RFID technology adoption and supply chain performance for logistics companies.

Design/methodology/approach - Determinants of RFID technology adoption are analyzed from the technological, organizational and environmental perspectives. Supply chain performance measurements consist of financial and non-financial indices. Data were collected by means of delivering questionnaires to logistics service providers in China. A total of 574 logistics companies were analyzed.

Findings - Logistics companies' willingness to adopt RFID technology are significantly influenced by the explicitness and accumulation of technology, organizational encouragement for innovation, quality of human resources, and governmental support. There is a positive association between the willingness to adopt RFID technology and supply chain performance for logistics service providers.

Research limitations/implications - As a single-country and single-industry study, the current research may be limited in its generalizability.

Practical implications - The growth of China's economy hinges to a large extent on the ability of the logistics industry to operate efficiently and effectively in the global supply chain system. China's logistics service providers need to adopt more efficient logistics technologies to provide better supply chain services for their customers. This paper provides some suggestions for governmental officials, logistics companies, and RFID technology providers in advancing the application of RFID in supply chains.

Originality/value - This paper may be the first empirical research in analyzing the adoption of RFID technology and its association with supply chain performance in the logistics industry, especially for China's logistics industry.

Many thanks for your suggestions!

Do you also know associations that promote a careful consumption to these matters?

Kind regards

VB

Dear Colleagues,

Our research group has just recently looked at this issue by analyzing Fairphone as a case. We used the theoretical lenses of paradox sustainability tensions and sustainable supply chain management to cover the social aspect and the support to local economies in a globalized smartphone market.

Please find the open access article at: Article Sustainability Tensions in Supply Chains: A Case Study of Pa...

An other article by our group looking more generally at material supply chains that support local economies would be: Article Sustainable supply chain management for minerals

Please do not hesitate to forward the articles or send any comments or feedback.

Best regards,

Philipp