Revisit the effect of reverse logistics practices on sustainability performance

Abstract

The increasing concern about environmental and energy conservation leads industries to serve the sustainability development as one of important issues. Reverse logistics can manage product returns effectively and play an important role in achieving the sustainability goals of any organization. As a result, many companies have been paying close attention to reverse logistics and made it a strategic decision. Despite the fact that reverse logistics can significantly increase the organization's sustainability performance, there has been little research into the relationship between reverse logistics and sustainability performance. Thus far, few researchers have examined the impact of reverse logistics disposition decisions on the triple bottom line (TBL), which includes economic, environmental, and social performance. Thus, this paper aims to review the impact of reverse logistics on sustainable performance and examine which option of the disposition decision is more suitable for the sustainable performance. Also, content analysis was used to analyse the selected papers on reverse logistics and sustainability performance. Ultimately, this study concludes that the impact of reverse logistics on social aspect have been largely neglected. Also, this study suggests that future researchers should concentrate on the empirical studies on how each disposition option of reverse logistics may influence the sustainability performance.