Supply chain intelligence: Integration of emerging digital innovations to promote sustainable supply chain practices

Abstract

Promoting sustainable practices remains central to achieving the UN's sustainable development goals. In the business sector, reaching this objective requires organisations to incorporate emerging digital innovations into their supply chain activities to facilitate the effective realisation of this aim. The current study examines the impact of supply chain intelligence on organisational sustainable supply chain practices and performance. We systematically selected 109 relevant articles from the Scopus database to provide an overview, identify gaps, and offer new perspectives on sustainable practices in organisational supply chain activities. Through detailed content analysis, the study's findings showed that supply chain intelligence (SCI) significantly helps improve firms' sustainable practices and organisational performance, demonstrating its importance in maximising sustainable outcomes. This notable link is achieved through the integration of emerging digital technologies that enable firms to capture, process, store, and apply relevant data, while also developing strong information management and decision support systems. Furthermore, we found that the adoption of the SCI concept has been particularly impactful in the agri-food industry, underscoring its role in tackling food insecurity, poverty, and climate change issues. A conceptual framework based on information processing theory illustrates how organisations can embed supply chain intelligence into their operations to promote sustainable supply chain practices. As sustainable practices remain crucial in current debates, the results highlight the need for organisations to adopt and implement emerging digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (artificial neural network; machine learning; agent-based and expert systems; fuzzy logics; robust set theory; genetic algorithms), big data, IoT, and blockchain in their supply chain activities to reduce environmental impact. This can serve as a countermeasure for addressing climate change and lowering greenhouse gas emissions as the world seeks to prevent and mitigate its effects. • Supply chain intelligence significantly improves organisational sustainable practices • Integrating emerging digital technologies enables firms to capture, process, store, and apply relevant data, while also allowing them to build robust information management and decision-support systems • The supply chain intelligence concept has been profound in the agri-food industry, highlighting its significance in addressing food insecurity, poverty, and climate change issues • A supply chain intelligence conceptual framework based on information processing theory is proposed demonstrating how organisation integrate sustainable practices • Theoretical and practical implications have been offered setting a tone for new debates.