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1. Introduction
Natural resources consumption rate has been upsurge due to growing customer demand, fast changing technologies, cut-throat competition and shorter product lifecycles. Hence, there has been a great emphasis on sustainability, to maintain the availability of resources for long time. Although the number of studies are available on sustainability, but these studies have less explained how to implement sustainability practices (Kumar and Rahman, 2013; Seuring and Muller, 2008). Moreover, Most of the research on sustainability is done in developing countries. Little attention has been paid to developing countries like India (Prakash and Barua, 2016b).
Supply chain is a process that involves various stages of production and each stage affects sustainability of the final product (Bommel, 2010; Vachon and Klassen, 2006). Due to the social and environmental burdens imposed in the initial stages of the supply chain (Michelsen, 2007); sustainability practices adoption across supply chains has become a matter of increasing concern over time, and come under the scanner of the media and many NGOs (Rao and Holt, 2005). Recently, Apple was under question due to some unsustainable practices followed by one of its suppliers in China. In this case, Apple is a “focal firm” facing pressure from external agencies on sustainability issues. A focal firm is a firm that generally owns a brand, is involved in the designing of products and services, and rules the supply chain (Seuring and Muller, 2008).
Focal firms need to develop a system to promote sustainability across the supply chain to avoid any negative impacts that could potentially harm their reputation (Cote et al., 2008). For this, focal firm need to identify the various dimensions and sub dimensions of the sustainability in supply chain operations. Along with focal firms, supplier firms should also support sustainability practices adoption to avoid any circumstance that may result in loss of business. Generally, there are two motivating factors behind adoption of sustainability practices by firms in the industrial environment (Hsu et al., 2013): first, the majority of firms adopt sustainability practices due to external pressure from multiple agencies such as NGOs, governments, customers and other stakeholders (Clemens and Douglus, 2006). Second, companies seek opportunities from sustainability practices adoption in order to gain marketing and competitive advantages, increase employee retention and improve...