Sustainable manufacturing is gaining much attention among practitioners and
academicians over a decade. This is because of many of today’s social and environmental issues are rooted in unsustainable forms of industrial and economic
development that causes tremendous pressure on finite natural resources. At the
same time, corporations are required to meet the stakeholder’s requirements, in
order to garner support and legitimacy for smooth conduct of business. Further,
corporates are developing new technologies and sustainable approaches that could
be integrated with sustainable manufacturing to achieve an overall competitive
advantage. The term sustainability refers to as “meeting today’s needs of present
generations without compromising the future generation’s needs” (Brundtland
1987). Brundtland report also points out two major concerns: development and
environment, and these can be labelled as “needs” versus “resources” or short term
vs long term. Further, United Nations in its development agenda propose sustainability as economic development, social development and environmental protection
and are interdependent and mutually reinforcing mechanisms of sustainable
development for achieving higher quality of life for people
In India too, there have been several popular media reports and stories concerning
social sustainability issues that include diversity, child and bonded labour, ethical
and gender discrimination, resulting in product recalls by the manufacturing units
(Ministry of Labour 2014). Thus, World Bank criticised TATA—one of biggest
corporate houses in the country—for its inability to address the “working conditions” issues in its coffee supply chain (World Bank 2014). Similarly, a number of
children and bonded labourers have been rescued from the manufacturing facilities
in Sivakasi and Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu and a few parts of Uttar Pradesh (Ministry
of Labour 2014). The Nobel Laureate Khailash Satyarthi’s efforts have been
instrumental in rescuing and rehabilitating many children and bonded labours from
the Indian manufacturing facilities. Further, media reports routinely pour in about
women’s safety issues at the workplace.