Exploring Circular Supply Chains in B-corps: The Role of Flows and Capabilities

Research on sustainable supply chain design has highlighted that all three – material, information and financial flows – are needed in order to arrive at sustainable supply chain designs with sustainable outputs and outcomes (Rosca et al., 2022; Bals and Tate, 2018). Current SCM practice contains mostly additive, corrective and symbolic practices regarding sustainability, while very few firms engage in substantial sustainability-driven supply chain modifications (Busse, Meinlschmidt and Foerstl, 2017). In order to study radical changes toward sustainable supply chains, large firms with exceptional environmental orientation are particularly promising suitable. B-Corps have been used in previous literature as a sample of firms with exceptional sustainability missions and performance (e.g., Gamble, Parker, and Moroz, 2020). This research presents the results of a study on supply chain designs in exceptionally sustainability-driven firms (B-Corps) and the role of capabilities for enabling restorative and/or regenerative supply chains (Batista et al., 2018) in the context of a circular economy.