The impact of Environmental conscious practices and ethics on supply chain management in fast food restaurants (Research Proposal Sample)

The impact of Environmental conscious practices and ethics on supply chain management in fast food restaurants
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Terms of Reference
Environmental consciousness and ethics are some of the key areas where modern businesses strive to be ahead of the competition in an effort to remain relevant and beat the competition. An area where these two concepts are observed with utmost keenness is in the sequence of processes involved is in the production and distribution of products, generally known as the supply chain (Kashmanian, 2015). Environmental impacts from supply chains can comprise of toxic waste, the loss of biodiversity, water pollution, deforestation, hazardous air emissions, long-term damage to the ecosystems, as well as greenhouse gas emissions (Huang, 2015). In the same breadth, while producing and distributing these services, businesses have to ensure that they do so in line with the accepted code of conduct in what are termed as ethical principles (Harbert, 2016). Therefore, there has been an increasing need to come up with environmentally friendly practices and observe ethics in the production and distribution of goods and services. A lapse in either ensuring environmentally conscious processes or observing ethics can dent not just the reputation of a business, but also its bottom line. As such, businesses have been forced to come up with environmental sustainability and ethics policies to guide their operations.
The fast food sector is one area of concern owing to reports that have painted it as one of the consumers of a significant amount of energy around the world (Jeong et al., 2014). This opinion is shared by other researchers such as NRA (2010), which mentions that restaurants consume 5 times more energy per square foot compared to other organizations. This research therefore focus on the impact of ethical and environmental practices in supply chain management activities in fast food restaurants in an effort to contain their impact on the environment and maintain their reputation among consumers.
Research question
1 How do environmental conscious practices and ethics affect supply chain management in fast food restaurants?
Aim of study
The aim of this research is to create awareness among fast food restaurant owners on how to properly manage their supply chain processes to ensure ethical and environmental sustainability.
Research Objectives
* To assess the level of awareness of managers and consumers towards environmental issues in supply chain management
* To assess the level of awareness of managers and consumers towards ethics in supply chain management
* To study the implementation of environmental conscious practices in fast food restaurants