Time: Wednesday, March 22, from 10:40 to 12:10 CET

Organizers: Sophie t’Serstevens, Maria Besiou, Sarah Joseph, Jonas Stumpf

Humanitarian organizations are on the front line of the climate crisis. Each day, they witness and react to disasters resulting from (or exacerbated by) climate change. Simultaneously, humanitarian supply chains also contribute to global warming. The activities associated with providing necessary aid and development efforts indeed produce significant carbon emissions and promote chronic environmental damage, which in turn drives the need for further relief operations. While the primary objective of humanitarian operations is to save lives and alleviate suffering, they should do so without causing any adverse effects to the communities they support and respect the sector’s “do no harm” principle. This implies that humanitarian organizations have an intrinsic responsibility to minimize the carbon footprint of their aid operations as well as any other environmental side-effects.

With our proposed incubator session, we will discuss how academia can help the sector decarbonise and operate more sustainably. We will start the session by giving the floor to representatives from the humanitarian community who will present key initiatives from the sector. This will be followed by an open discussion focusing on the collaboration between academia and the sector: What actions can academia take to actively support the humanitarian sector in addressing the pressing challenges of climate change and environmental crises? How can academia harness its expertise and resources to make a significant impact? What research areas should academia prioritize to drive innovative solutions and shape policies that can build a sustainable future for all?

Time: Thursday, March 23 from 09:00 to 10:30 CET 

Organizers: Anne Touboulic, Caroline Emberson, Altricia Dawson, Lin Wu

The aim of the session is to initiate the development of a community of practice to address how supply chain management theory might be developed to support the achievement of the UN sustainable development goals.

You will have the opportunity to: 

• Critically reflect on current theories from supply chain management and other disciplines and consider their application for research to support the SDGs
• Identify fellow participants with complementary research interests
• Learn how you can submit a book chapter proposal for a forthcoming edited volume of the Elgar Companion series focused on ‘Supply chains and the SDGs’

The theme of this incubator session is expanding the theoretical and methodological boundaries in SCM to support socio-ecological transitions and the achievement of the SDGs. Leveraging theories, concepts, methods and frameworks from a variety of disciplines that have not yet been traditionally used by SCM scholars will enrich the SCM discipline and enable the articulation of novel pathways that can help move the field forward both conceptually and practically.

Time: Wednesday, March 22, from 10:40 to 12:10 CET 

Organizers: Nick Wake, Javier Delgado Ceballos, Ambra Galeazzo

Teaching Corporate Sustainability (CS) in Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM) is highly relevant since students need to understand how to design, develop and control material and information flows sustainably for organisational benefit. To be effective, CS teaching needs to lead to the implementation of sustainable practices within organisations. Whilst the literature recognises the need for innovative pedagogical approaches in OSCM generally and in CS education particularly, there is a dearth of up-to-date teaching materials in this area. In many cases this means that faculty are reliant on traditional teaching methods despite the demonstrable benefits of active learning approaches and a recognised need to incorporate simulations. This incubator session has three main objectives:

1. To provide a general introduction to the benefits of using simulations in teaching
2. To introduce and play a specific simulation: “Capatonia”
3. To present ideas on how to integrate simulations into OSCM courses.

Capatonia is a gamified approach to teaching CS in OSCM. It presents an understanding how economies can successfully transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy for electricity production. Participants in the game take the role of one of several electricity generating companies supplying power to the same grid. Participants start the game with a set of installed electricity generating assets and a forecast of future demand. The teams are tasked with creating a capacity strategy that ensures continuity of supply. The key to succeeding comes from understanding that different assets – such as windfarms, hydrogen fuel cells, battery farms, and nuclear power plants – have different levels of reliability, flexibility, and cost, and that balancing these factors is needed to create equilibrium between supply and demand.

Time: Part 1: Monday, March 20, from 14:30 to 16:00 CET, Part 2: Thursday, March 23, from 09:00 to 10:30 CET

Organizers: Giovanna Culot, Albachiara Boffelli, Morgane Fritz

The incubator aims to kick-start a conversation on the “how to” of academic activism. In particular, the session will showcase relevant experiences of engaged/activist scholars around three main foci of academic activities, namely:

• Research: research design and methodologies, potential risks, funding, topics. Particular attention will be paid to methodologies such as action research.
• Teaching: innovative methods, experiences, and resources (e.g., sustainability mindset, case-based teaching, gamification). Particular attention will be paid on how to support students to become responsible managers.
• Engagement with non-academic stakeholders: how to interact with key stakeholders throughout the research project, from design to dissemination. The use of social media for academic research will be a core topic in this respect.

Furthermore, the session will apply and discuss the key takeaways from the showcase to concrete issues/opportunities faced by the participants of the incubator session (to be gathered in advance, also leveraging the ARCS network).

The outcomes of the incubator are related to greater alignment on the relevant know-how/toolkit of activist O-SCM scholars as well as to the identification of potential collaboration areas among interested researchers.

Please note: The incubator is split in two related sections of 1.5 hours each. The first section will be a presentation and Q&A on the three topics (i.e., research, teaching, and engagement). The second section will take place in breakout rooms, one for each of the topics, and a plenary discussion.

Time: Monday, March 20, from 14:30 to 16:00 CET 

Organizers: Eugenia Rosca, Lydia Bals, Kelsey Taylor, Wendy Tate

There is increasing evidence of the important role novel actors and novel forms of organizing can play in helping supply chains achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This incubator session aims to advance research on the role of non-traditional actors in enabling sustainability in global supply chains. These non-traditional actors can include NGOs, multi-stakeholder initiatives, local governments, social intermediaries as well as social businesses. They can enable the adoption and transfer of sustainability practices upstream and downstream in the supply chain through mechanisms such as knowledge creation and sharing, partnership development, provision of impact investment opportunities, certification and verification of practices, ensuring transparency and visibility along the supply chain. The session aims to discuss different types of such actors, mechanisms through which they operate and outcomes in different contexts.

The overarching goal of the session is to initiate a discussion and showcase several examples of novel actors and forms or organizing in supply chains. Based on the discussion, the idea is to develop an elaborated journal article, a discussion piece targeted at an SCM journal, such as Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management, International Journal of Operations and Production Management or International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management.

Time: Monday, March 20, from 14:30 to 16:00 CET

Organizers: Melanie E. Kreye, Dirk Pieter van Donk, Alejandro G. Frank, Siri Jagstedt

Manufacturers are increasingly offering services to support their products, known as servitization, which can help achieve sustainability goals by reducing environmental impact and enabling circular supply chains. Digital technologies can also aid in reducing environmental impact through updates and end-of-life management. This session aims to discuss the challenges of implementing these services and their potential benefits for creating sustainable supply chains.

The focus of this session is to start to explore the possibilities, limitations and challenges of achieving environmental sustainability effects from service-based engagements in supply chains. Through addressing potential scientific questions related to design, management and governance of such services, their direct operational effects and future operations and supply chain effect through, for example, creating circular supply chains based on sustainability as a service.

We are interested in stimulating a debate about this topic to identify meaningful pathways for future research. We envision this session to provide a basis for exploring and discussing some of the possible research directions and challenges for practice.

Time: Thursday, March 23, from 09:00 to 10:30 CET

Organizers: Jan Godsell, Kamran Chatha, Wanrong Zhang

To support the shift toward a low-carbon economy by 2050, firms are requested to report Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions to complete the sustainability audit. Industry figures show that nearly 80% of global emissions are clustered as Scope 3, which is beyond the control of a single firm. It is inevitable that firms must take an ecosystem perspective in addressing sustainable issues, which requires both strategic and operational reconsiderations to achieve the ‘Net Zero’ goal by its deadline. Whilst it is impossible to predict the future, envisioning it enables us to explore different future scenarios and identify a desirable future by answering the following questions:

• What could the sustainable future of global manufacturing ecosystems look like?
• What are associated business models that enable the vision?
• How could firms leverage the power of IDTs in supporting ideal business models?

With a clearly defined vision, we could then work backwards to identify critical milestones and steps towards it. This workshop aims to develop a set of digital roadmaps that support global manufacturing firms transform their supply chains to achieve sustainable growth by 2040. The specific objectives of the workshop are to gather international insights to inform the development of sustainable visions and business models, to form multidisciplinary teams to co-design the digital roadmaps that support the future vision, to generate actionable insights to support the decision-making of industrial practitioners and policymakers an to develop research ideas into precise concepts that researchers could continue work on after the workshop.

Time: Monday, March 20, from 14:30 to 16:00 CET

The Meet-the-Editor Session is a unique and exciting opportunity for anyone interested to learn about publishing in two important journals in the field of supply chain management. The two editors participating in this session are:

1. Andreas Wieland: Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Supply Chain Management
2. Constantin Blome: Editor of the International Journal of Operations & Production Management.

During the session, participants will have the opportunity to meet with the editors and learn about the specific requirements and expectations for publishing in their journals. This is an excellent opportunity to gain valuable insight into the publishing process and to learn how to increase the chances of having research accepted in these journals.

The session will cover a range of topics, including the types of articles that are most likely to be accepted, the peer review process, and the importance of rigorous research methodology. Attending the Meet-the-Editor Session is a must for anyone serious about publishing in these journals or wanting to learn more about sustainable supply chain management.