Consumer Choice and Sustainable Development of Supply Chains

Globalization and ever-growing population in the World, inevitably leads to higher demand for products and services. To meet the growing demand, companies are expanding their operation, and as consequence there is increased negative environmental impact along the supply chain (SC). Thus, raising consumer awareness can reduced environmental impact on the environment, which leads to more sustainable SCs. The aim of this paper is to show how the consumer impact on SCs and to what extent can the environmental impact be reduced. The methodology used in this work is mathematical modelling (optimization), and environmental impacts are set as objective functions. The model was tested on a IT SCs and the result shows that the environmental impact can be significantly reduced by raising consumer awareness and switching to more sustainable products.