Corporate environmental responsibility in the supply chain

A continuing trend in outsourcing increases the complexity of supply chains. Global supply chains extend over numerous echelons of countless companies. In parallel, the company-internal view on corporate environmental responsibility is being challenged as customers and legislation alike broaden a company's environmental responsibility to include organisations' upstream as well as downstream in the supply chain. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine corporate environmental responsibility beyond corporate boundaries, i.e. in the supply chain. A cross-industrial study based on 16 case studies in Finnish trans-national corporations sheds light on various dimensions of corporate environmental responsibility upstream and downstream of product and process supply chains. Conclusions were drawn for corporate environmental responsibility as well as for the role of supply chain management in extending environmental demand over several echelons and diverse industries.