Modeling the interrelationships among barriers to sustainable supply chain management in leather industry

The leather industry of Bangladesh is facing considerable amounts of pressure to adopt sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). While there are some studies that have examined barriers to SSCM practices in developed and developing countries in various domains, these are not necessarily applicable to the Bangladeshi leather industry. To bridge this gap, it is crucial to identify most influential barriers to SSCM practices, particularly in the context of developing economies. Therefore, this study identifies such barriers and examines the causal relationships between them with an aim to facilitate the effective implementation of SSCM in the Bangladeshi leather processing industry. Thirty-five barriers to SSCM implementation were identified through a detailed literature review and a survey of leather processing industry experts. Among them, the most common 20 barriers were selected with the help of industry experts. Then, a blended, grey-based Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach was utilized to examine their interrelationships. The results demonstrate that nine barriers could be classified as “causal” and eleven as “influenced”. ‘Lack of awareness of local customers in green products’ and ‘lack of commitment from top management’ took high priority in the causal group. ‘Lack of reverse logistics practices’ and ‘Outdated machineries’ were the most influenced barriers. This research uses a leather processing company as a case study for demonstrating the proposed model. The findings aim to support the leather processing industry in a structural way, so that industrial managers can identify the most influential barriers and work to eliminate them. This study may be useful to stakeholders to achieve sustainable development.