Post-Covid challenges and opportunities: rethinking ESG performance in the logistics sector

Abstract

In the post-COVID era, the logistics sector faces significant challenges and opportunities. These are mostly due to disruptions in global supply chains and a rise in e-commerce demand. To overcome these issues, companies need to adopt digital technologies, reshape consumer demand, and implement flexible work arrangements, with a focus on sustainability. This transition bolstered attention on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations. In this study, we introduce new metrics to evaluate ESG performance in the logistics sector. To resolve inconsistencies in existing approaches, we propose the Standardised Unitless Rating (SUR) methodology, which combines satisfaction scores and criterion relevance. We employed the Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (IT2FAHP) to calculate the relative weights of ESG criteria. The results show that newly established companies with innovative technology have performed better than traditional companies. This proposed method has been validated by comparing it with existing methods. Additionally, we observed the importance of relative weight as compared to criteria with equal weight. The findings suggest that incorporating process metrics could help companies enhance their ESG performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Logistics sector
• ESG
• SUR method
• performance metrics
• IT2FAHP

Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The supporting data of this study is available from the corresponding author upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rambabu Juvvala

Rambabu Juvvala is a post-doctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Mumbai, India. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, in 2022. He also holds an M.Tech. degree in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Rourkela, India, and a B.Tech. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pondicherry University, India. His research interests include city logistics, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), prediction-optimization techniques, and electric vehicles.

Shirish Sangle

Shirish Sangle is Professor of Sustainability Management at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Mumbai, India. He is Dean of Faculty Affairs & Chairperson of the constitutional committee at the institute. His areas of research are corporate sustainability and stakeholder engagement. He has professional work experience of about 30 years and has been consulting well-known public sector and government holding companies. His research has been published in renowned journals.

Manoj Kumar Tiwari

Manoj Kumar Tiwari (FNAE, FNASc, FIISE) is Director, of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIM), Mumbai, India. He is also a Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. He received Ph.D. in the Department of Production Engineering from Jadavpur University, West Bengal, India. He is actively involved in research relevant to the applications of optimisation, modelling, decision support systems, and data mining in the domain of logistics, supply chain management, and manufacturing systems. He has published more than 360 papers in reputed International Journals such as the European Journal of Operations Research, the International Journal of Production Research, the International Journal of Production Economics, Expert Systems with Applications, and IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics-Part A. He has received several awards and recognitions for his work, including the David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award 2023 from the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE), the Mahalanobis Distinguished Educator Award from the Operations Research Society of India (ORSI), and the Lillian Gilbreth Award (2021–22). Prof. Tiwari is also an editor of various reputed journals in the field of Production and Operations Management including IJPR, CAIE, ESWA, and IISE.