Transition inertia due to competition in supply chains with remanufacturing and recycling: A systems dynamics model

• Supply chains are an indispensable part of many sociotechnical systems despite the shift from products to services.
• The paper considers the link between supply chain and sociotechnical transition research.
• Competitive responses based on exploiting current firm advantages can keep supply chain strategies locked in.
• For sustainability transitions, competition barriers at the supply chain level must be overcome.
• Transition through the growth of emergent niches of sustainable supply chains is difficult.

This paper studies the link between capital goods supply chains and sociotechnical transitions. Research on the latter has so far tended to focus on sustainability, energy and transport systems. Despite the considerable shift from products to services, supply chains are an integral element of most sociotechnical systems and there seems to be no foreseeable substitute for them. Consequently, for transitions to sustainability to take place, the inertia of supply chains in these systems has to be overcome and their environmental impact reduced. The paper explores this with a system dynamics model of a supply chain. While remanufacturing of used products by the retailer and recycling by the supplier can reduce the environmental impact of the supply chain, competition in the market between new and remanufactured products forces them into a situation where improving business and environmental performance is difficult.