Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will comprise a selection of theoretical and empirical studies in the context of sustainable supply chains with particular regards to knowledge management (creation, storage, transfer and utilization) and its impact on the supply network performance.

The concepts of supply chain management (SCM), knowledge management (KM), and sustainability have recently gained great attention in research and business practice but to our best knowledge are hardly connected; specifically, the role of KM in the Sustainability of the SC is not thoroughly understood.

The supply chain involves a variety of flows (material, information, financial, etc.) between different actors so that knowledge sharing could significantly improve the level of skills and the expertise of the entire supply chain.

A deep cooperation on sustainability along the supply chain has a positive impact on competitiveness because the development of economic, social, and environmental sustainable processes and knowledge integration between supply chain partners is very hard to imitate and provide a sustainable competitive advantage.

The sustainability of the supply chain at the social and environmental level requires transparent and trustful knowledge exchanges between the different actors who operate in the supply chain in order to avoid the negative effects of the production systems on both the society and the environment.

In the following, we put forward a list of possible and interesting topics which, however, is not to be considered exhaustive:

• The role of information and knowledge in supplier relationship management (SRM) practices for sustainable supply chains;
• supply chain management/advanced planning and scheduling systems impact on social, environmental and economic performance of supply chains;
• Supply Chain strategic design to avoid suboptimizations in sustainability and value creation at a supply chain level;
• Coordinating product and supply chain design decisions to improve sustainability in supply chain management;
• Sustainability in supply chain operations as a driver for competitive and financial–economic performance of SC actors;
• The role of blockchain technology in underpinning transparent knowledge exchanges and trust along the SC;
• KM challenges in closed-loop supply chains (forward and reverse supply chains) for the sustainable circular economy.

Prof. Valeria Mininno
Prof. Luisa Pellegrini
Prof. Riccardo Dulmin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Sustainability
• Knowledge Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Sustainable Development
• Green Supply Chain
• Performance
• Sustainable Supply Chain
• Sustainable Supplier selection Supplier collaborations