Managing risks in sustainable supply chains

Purpose of the paper: The aim of this paper is to discuss the emerging challenges that modern supply chains face from the perspective of sustainability, highlighting the opportunities and the risks that these organizations encounter. Methodology: The paper is theoretical, and provides an analysis of trends and challenges for sustainable supply chains and the management of related risks, highlighting some gaps in the literature. Findings: The paper categorizes the priorities for modern sustainable supply chains and provides a clear differentiation between the concept of ‘sustainability risk management’ and the categorization of ‘risks in sustainable supply chains’. Implications and originality/value of the paper: The paper addresses different gaps in the literature of sustainable supply chains and provides the managers with helpful directions for their supply chain management agenda. In detail, authors identifies trends that seem to make supply chains more vulnerable and exposed to the risk, key risk-related questions for managing sustainable supply chain, suggesting a number of important issues which need to be weighed when supply chain design decisions are taken. Research limitations: The theoretical approach of the paper can benefit from future in-depth analyses based on case studies.