Identification and Analysis of Key Sustainable Criteria for Third Party Reverse Logistics Provider Selection Using the Best Worst Method

Growing environmental issues, social concerns, enforced regulations and intense competition have motivated electronic companies to inculcate Reverse Logistics (RL) practices in action for sustainable Reverse Supply Chain (RSC). Due to lack of expertise and the heavy costs associated with the setting up of reverse logistics system, RL practices are widely embraced by most companies through Third Party Reverse Logistics Providers (3PRLPs). Due to the dependency of companies on 3PRLPs, the evaluation and selection of 3PRLP is a matter of strategic concern and requires critical decision-making. The main challenge in this regard that the companies face is to identify the appropriate criteria for assessing the performance of 3PRLP under a sustainable environment. In this sense, the main intent of the current study is to provide a systematic framework for an electronics company to (i) identify the most relevant 3PRLP performance evaluation criteria under three sustainability dimensions namely, economic, environmental and social, (ii) extract the most influential list of sustainable criteria and (iii) determine the weights of importance of the influential criteria. In order to attain this objective, a decision-making model is proposed in which firstly, the economic, environmental and social criteria are derived from an extensive literature survey. Secondly, Delphi technique is used to shortlist the most influential criteria. Thirdly, the Best Worst Method (BWM) is used to determine the importance of the shortlisted criteria. The result analysis shows that environmental sustainability is the primary focus of the companies for the implementation of RL, contrary to the assumption that economic performance is always the major motivation. ‘Quality’, ‘RL Practices’ and ‘Health and Safety’ are accorded the highest ranking under economic, environmental and social dimensions, respectively. The proposed model can assist electronic companies in determining the most important criteria for sustainable 3PRLP selection for outsourcing RL activities.