Life cycle assessment in the supply chain: a review and case study

The paper addresses the use of Life Cycle Assessment as a tool for analysing freight transport activity in product supply chains. Published works that have assessed freight transport energy use in supply chain operations are reviewed and their results summarized. A case study of the energy use in the supply chains for jeans sold in both the UK and France is presented. The results of this case study indicate that the location from which cotton is sourced can have a major impact on the total energy used in commercial transport in the jeans supply chain. However, overall, this has a limited impact on the total energy used in producing and supplying jeans. This is because the vast majority of total energy used in the supply chain is consumed during cotton cultivation, denim production and jeans manufacture. The work also demonstrates that the amount of energy used by consumers transporting jeans to their homes by car can be greater than the total commercial transport energy used in the supply chain (per kg of jeans transported).

Small farmers and sustainability: institutional barriers to investment and innovation in the Malaysian palm oil industry in Sabah

The Malaysian palm oil industry is well known for the social, environmental and sustainability challenges associated with its rapid growth over the past ten years. Technologies exist to reduce the conflict between national development aims of economic uplift for the rural poor, on the one hand, and ecological conservation, on the other hand, by raising yields and incomes from areas already under cultivation. But the uptake of these technologies has been slow, particularly in the smallholder sector. In this paper we explore the societal and institutional challenges that influence the investment and innovation decisions of micro and small enterprise (MSE) palm oil smallholders in Sabah, Malaysia. Based on interviews with 38 smallholders, we identify a number of factors that reduce the smallholders' propensity to invest in more sustainable practices. We discuss why more effective practices and innovations are not being adopted using the concepts of, firstly, institutional logics to explore the internal dynamics of smallholder production systems, including attitudes to sustainability and innovation; and, secondly, institutional context to explore the pressures the smallholders face, including problems of access to land, labour, capital, knowledge and technical resources. These factors include limited access to global market information, corruption and uncertainties of legal title, weak economic status and social exclusion. In discussing these factors we seek to contribute to wider theoretical debates about the factors that block innovation and investment in business improvements in marginal regions and in marginalised groups.