Sustainability improvement through supplier selection

The sustainability target method (STM) provides a practical sustainability target for individual businesses and products through determining the relative indicator resource productivity (RP) for environmental performance and the absolute indicator eco-efficiency (EE) for sustainability. Based on the STM indicators, this paper explores the relationship among the sustainability of individual companies and overall economy, and investigates decision making approaches to providing product manufacturers and managers the suggestions on sustainability improvement through supplier selection. An example is provided to illustrate the approach.