Conceptualizing sustainable development and global supply chains Frank Boons a, ⁎, Henrikke Baumann b , Jeremy Hall c a Department of Public Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands b Environmental Systems Analysis, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden c Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada abstract article info Available online 29 June 2012 This paper introduces a holistic approach to the study of sustainable development of global product chains. We first present a number of perspectives on this topic from disciplines such as economic geography, man- agement science, sociology and environmental sciences. Each of these approaches brings in a specific focus: the consequences of geographical dispersion of economic activities, measurement of ecological and social im- pact, managing sustainability in supply chains, and power asymmetry among economic actors. Until now, these disciplinary research lines have remained unconnected. We argue that ecological economics provides a promising background for a more holistic conceptualization. To this end, we formulate five basic questions that serve to advance the study of sustainability throughout the product chain by connecting the foci of the identified scientific disciplines. The aim of advancing a holistic perspective has guided the selection of papers for this special subsection, which are introduced throughout the text. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction This paper discusses recent theoretical approaches for conceptual- izing sustainable development in global supply chains. Increasing the sustainability of production and consumption activities requires that we ground our managerial and policy actions on an analysis of eco- nomic systems beyond individual firms and consumers. In the past, the product chain has been recognized as a powerful unit of analysis (Boons and Wagner, 2009), where the product life cycle delineates a meaningful system for assessing the environmental impact of eco- nomic activities by facilitating an integrated assessment of various environmental impacts across related economic stages of production, consumption, recycling, and waste handling. For example, the devel- opment of product life cycle assessment (LCA) since the 1990s makes clear how attempts to reduce ecological impact in one part of the chain affect other parts of the chain (Aurich et al., 2004; Brunklaus et al., 2010; Hunt and Franklin, 1996; Matos and Hall, 2007; Matsuhashi et al., 2000), illuminating the interconnectedness of poli- cy and management decisions and their ecological consequences (Baumann and Tillman, 2004). The product chain perspective thus combines pressures for efficiencies from an economic and ecological perspective. The application of the product life cycle analytical point of view in policy and practice is complicated by the fact that the activities that constitute a product chain are performed by economic actors embedded in networks of relationships that are increasingly global. Global product chains can be seen as networks through which envi- ronmental and social impacts are transferred across boundaries (Cave and Blomquist 2008; Dahlström and Ekins 2006). The product chain system boundary thus enables the analysis of important shifts that have taken place in socio-economic systems, such as the move of production activities towards emerging economies such as China. The networks that make up product chains involve firms and consumers, but also the governmental agencies and NGOs that seek to shape the choices made by firms. All these relationships affect the operational and strategic choices made by firms as well as con- sumer practices. As a result, they also affect the environmental and social impact throughout the product life cycle. As far as policies for sustainable development are concerned, researchers, policymakers and practitioners have discovered that the linkages between econom- ic actors that are associated with the production and consumption of a specific (set of) products form powerful conduits through which sustainability efforts can be developed and disseminated. Unfortunately, a holistic understanding of sustainability in relation to product chains continues to be hampered by imperfect linkages across a number of research communities that have taken up this issue. The ways in which firms deal with the negative impact of their ac- tivities on societies and natural ecosystems is gaining hold as a topic of research in management and organization studies (Bansal and Gao 2006), innovation studies (Weber and Hemmelskamp 2005) and eco- nomic geography (Deutz and Gibbs 2008; Dicken, 1994) among others. However, to a considerable extent these insights have been developing in isolation, and have not received substantial attention within the field of ecological economics. Ecological Economics 83 (2012) 134–143 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: boons@fsw.eur.nl (F. Boons). 0921-8009/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.05.012 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Ecological Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon