Blockchain Technology and Supply Chain Sustainability: A View From UNSDG Perspective

Introduction

Rapid industrialization, globalization, and technological advancement brought exponential challenges to humanity, firms, and the environment (Jerath, 2021). To address these challenges, international regulatory bodies formulated suitable regulations at different times, however, they were incapable of providing adequate measures. Therefore, in 2015 United Nations formulated Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs). UNSDGs contain 232 indicators and 17 goals that are supposed to address issues in every sector. To address and implement these goals in developed and developing nations, trust, coordination and exchange of resources are an essential part. In this regard, developed countries have transferred a handsome amount of funds to these developing countries but unexpectedly, targeted goals have not been achieved due to a lack of several factors like a lack of trust, honesty, corruption, political instability, and weak governance (de Villiers et al., 2021). UNSDGs have been categorized into three categories first, UNSDGs with established methods and available data, second, UNSDGs with established methods but inadequate data availability and third UNSDGs with no established methods (Peltola et al., 2022). To enhance the quality of information and statistics, the UN’s Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) has partnered with data revolution to promote sustainable development. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the UNSDGs and promoted digitalization in every sector of life that accelerate automation and reduced human interference generating the philosophy of Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 (de Villiers et al., 2021).

Digitalization has brought challenges to sustainability, equity, and social inclusion at one end however acts as a strong enabler to address UNSDGs if implemented with true letter and spirit (Zheng & Walsham, 2008). In the field of the supply chain, blockchain technology was considered to be the primitive tool to address data sharing, information sharing and bring strong collaboration among trading partners. Blockchain technology is a decentralized and transactional database that provides resistant free transactions and facilitates a large number of trading partners through heterogeneous networks (nodes) (Beck et al., 2018). Kewell et al. (2017) suggested that due to the blockchain feature of being decentralized and resistant to free transactions, it can handle the challenges of trust, visibility, transparency, and decentralization among a large number of individuals, firms, institutions, and society at large. Due to its features, blockchain technology is discussed in a wider range named supply chain sustainability, certification, organizational competencies, smart contracts, and smart cities (Rossi et al., 2019). Additionally, the nexus of blockchain with sustainable development brought it to the core of research area in multidisciplinary areas (Lindman et al., 2017; Rossi et al., 2019).

The Majority of blockchain applications are directly associated with sustainable development initiatives. For example, blockchain technology can accelerate SC visibility, transparency, enhance information and data sharing, and provide sustenance to a circular economy (Khan et al., 2023; Mohamed et al., 2023). The implementation of blockchain technology is much evident during and after COVID-19 in supply chain management (Khan & Manzoor, 2021; Mohamed et al., 2023), public administration (Ølnes et al., 2017) and even in gender studies (Thylin & Duarte, 2019). Interestingly., the supply chain literature is abundant with blockchain applications however, little has been investigated to explore the role of blockchain technology in addressing sustainability (Chandan et al., 2023; Medaglia & Damsgaard, 2020) and how this technology can help achieve the UNSDG goals.