Factors implementing sustainable circular economy in agro-produce supply chain: DEMATEL-DANP-based approach

Abstract

Purpose

The sustainable and circular growth of agro-produce is crucial in today's era. The current paper focuses on identifying the drivers which promote sustainability as well as circularity in the agro-produce supply chain and favor its implementation in agro-produce supply chain.

Design/methodology/approach

Drivers are identified by carrying out a brief literature review and then short-listed based on the expert's opinion. The crucial drivers identified are then categorized into four groups, i.e. farms, social, government and organization. A DEMATEL-DANP approach is used to analyze the relation among subfactors and factors by deriving network relations map. Further, the weights of each subfactor are measured followed by calculating the ranks of the drivers in significance with successful implementation of sustainable circular economy.

Findings

This study has applied DEMATEL-DANP approach to analyze the relationship among four factors and twelve sub factors and their contribution towards adopting the culture of sustainable circular economy in agro-produce supply chain. The results show that “Integration of farmers” and “Updated infrastructure and tools of the farm to promote diverse farming” are primary drivers for implementing SCE in APSC.

Originality/value

The research explored the domains of sustainability and circularity separately. Drivers that could accelerate the implementation of circularity in agro-produce in a sustainable manner were identified. This will help in designing sustainable circular model for working of the agro-produce supply chain.

Citation

Avikal, S., Pant, R., Barthwal, A., Ram, M. and Upadhyay, R.K. (2023), "Factors implementing sustainable circular economy in agro-produce supply chain: DEMATEL-DANP-based approach", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 1158-1173. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-03-2022-0088