Building Resilience in the Supply Chain in the Digital Era: The Challenges for Social, Environmental and Economic Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal call from the United Nations to provide a shared blueprint for sustainability, peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. The 11th Goal—sustainable cities and communities—aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. In the digital era, coupled with the pandemic crisis, advancing social sustainability is further related to promoting human resource development, quality of life and employee wellbeing. Circular and biobased economic models, as well as an industrial symbiosis that improves across industry resource/energy efficiency and eco-innovations, is needed to move towards an environmentally and economically sustainable transition. To facilitate this transition to sustainable human communities, synergies and partnerships are needed across multiple stakeholders (Trivellas et al., 2021), and supply chains have a critical role to play (Reklitis et al., 2021). Furthermore, with new emerging technologies such as e-business, blockchain and cryptocurrency leveraging business communication, digital marketing, crowdsourcing, user engagement and financial management, there is a move towards the digital transformation of community activities.

We invite all academicians and professionals to provide their point of view on this emerging issue through research articles. The goal of this Special Issue is to analyze the actions of all stakeholders and highlight their role focusing on social, environmental and economic sustainability of communities, as well as communities’ connectivity in the digital era.

Reading List:

1. Reklitis, P.; Sakas, D.; Trivellas, P.; Tsoulfas, G. Performance Implications of Aligning Supply Chain Practices with Competitive Advantage: Empirical Evidence from the Agri-Food Sector. Sustainability 2021, 13, 8734.
2. Manikas, I.; Malindretos, G.; Moschuris, S. A Community-Based Agro-Food Hub Model for Sustainable Farming. Sustainability 2019, 11, 1017. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11041017
3. Trivellas, P.; Malindretos, G.; Reklitis, P. Implications of Green Logistics Management on Sustainable Business and Supply Chain Performance: Evidence from a Survey in the Greek Agri-Food Sector. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10515.
4. Sakas, D.P.; Kamperos, I.D.G.; Reklitis, P. Estimating Risk Perception Effects on Courier Companies’ Online Customer Behavior during a Crisis, Using Crowdsourced Data. Sustainability 2021, 13, 12725.
5. Wang, Y.; Iqbal, U.; Gong, Y. The Performance of Resilient Supply Chain Sustainability in COVID-19 by Sourcing Technological Integration. Sustainability 2021, 13, 6151. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116151
6. Najjar, M.; Small, M.H.; M. Yasin, M. Social Sustainability Strategy across the Supply Chain: A Conceptual Approach from the Organisational Perspective. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10438.
7. Trivellas, P.; Anastasopoulou, A.; Malindretos, G.; Reklitis, P.; Sakas, D.P.; A place-based analysis of stakeholders' advancing sustainability in remote and isolated communities: The case of North Aegean Islands, IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2021, 899(1), 012044

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Panagiotis Reklitis
Prof. Dr. George Malindretos
Guest Editors

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