Abstract
The large part of mining operations relies heavily on
suppliers for their smooth running. Since suppliers
potentially influence mines economically, socially and
environmentally, companies increasily demand high
performance from these suppliers and in some cases have
put systems in place to monitor their performance (Kumar
& Chandrakar, 2012). It is not until recently that supply
chains have been put under the same degree of scrutiny as
the company’s main units (Pereseina, Jensen & Hertz,
2014). Thus supply chain management (SCM) was mainly
concerned with the efficient and responsive system of
production and delivery from raw material stage to final
consumer. This paper focuses on the mining industry in
South Africa.
The establishment of a mine is almost certainly
accompanied by distresses such as site exploitation, minewaste
residuals contamination of the environment which
happen on a greater scale than in many industries
(Pattanayak et.al, 2013). Mining contributes to global
warming and causes health hazards resulting from the
carbon dioxide and methane which are greenhouse gasses
released during mining activities. Sulphur dioxide, oxide
of nitrogen and carbon monoxide are harmful gases that
severely cause air pollution and acid rain (Muduli &
Barve, 2011). The emissions of carbon and the
conservation of water are huge concerns for mines. Being
huge consumers of energy and resources, mines have
occassionally found themselves on a collission course
with government and civil society (Lam, Ho & Choy,
2014).
With the growing concern of environmental issues and the
associated regulation, supply chains have now become
part of the broader debate on how industry meets the
challenges of sustainability (Seitz & Wells, 2006). The
attempt to address the conception of sustainability in
supply chain has led to the development of variouus
concepts such as sustainable supply chain management
(Carter & Rogers, 2008), green supply chain (Kumar &
Chandrakar, 2012), sustainable supply chain collaboration
(Vachon & Klassen, 2006) and sustainable procurement
(Leppelt, 2014). The implementation of sustainable
supply chains is not without challenges. Thus the aim of
the paper is to explore the role that suppliers play in
promoting sustainability in supply chains. The paper is
organised as follows: The next section is a literature
review, followed by research methodology and the results
sections. Finally, the paper concludes with some
recommendations and directions for future research