Social, Economic and Environmental Sustainability as Reflected in a Case of Rural Community in West Bengal, India

A supply chain has three major segments: input supply, production, and market/consumption. The flow of funds starts from users/consumers of products to the producer to the input suppliers in order to finance the production and delivery. Meanwhile, products flow towards the other direction, from input suppliers to producers to end-users/consumers (Bernardo, n.d). In this section we will be investigating the peculiarities of any agri-based supply chain and the SSE in particular, drawing conclusions on its success achieved so far. Supply chains transform raw materials through a process that results in products that are sold to customers. Payment for this process flows in the opposite direction in the chain. The underlying objective of a sustainable supply chains is to deliver a successful product at an acceptable profit. A product must be available, affordable, of adequate quality, and delivered in an appropriate time. The degrees to which product providers in the supply chain achieve these aspirations go beyond them and can be defined as customer value (Tyndall et al, 1998). The benefits have to satisfy both the suppliers as well as the customers, and only then such chains become value chains (Cutter 2000 in A. Oyo. 2002)

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