Analyzing the Drivers and Barriers of Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Indian Steel Industry: A Fuzzy TISM Approach

Abstract

India plays a significant role in global steel production, with its steel industry serving as a fundament for the nation’s economic development. How-ever, the steel industry is energy-intensive and rapidly depletes natural re-sources to fulfill the nation’s demand, causing environmental degradation. Therefore, it has become essential to maintain a proper balance between the economic, environmental, and social issues in the supply chain of the Indian steel industry. A lot of factors affect the implementation of sustainability in the steel industry’s supply chain. Therefore, these industries need to identify the most crucial factors for sustainability implementation. Thus, this study aims to contribute to both theory and practice by identifying and analyzing the critical drivers and barriers with the help of fuzzy Total Interpretive Structural Model-ing (F-TISM) to prioritize them hierarchically. Data were collected from three experts with extensive experience in sustainability and supply chain manage-ment from a steel industry located in eastern India. The study’s practical impli-cations lie in providing steel industry practitioners with a clear roadmap to pri-oritize sustainability efforts. Key findings reveal that ‘Compliance with envi-ronmental standards’ is the most influential driver, while ‘Inadequate govern-ment regulation’ on sustainability emerges as the most significant barrier to SSCM implementation.