Mitigating the Mutual Impacts between Climate Change and Humanitarian Supply Chains

Climate change increasingly adds to the complexity of the environment in which humanitarian supply chains operate. More and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable climate related natural hazards make it more difficult for humanitarian organizations in both preparedness efforts and response. Humanitarian supply chains, on the other hand, also contribute to the carbon footprints during humanitarian operations. Even though the mindsets have been changing, the metrics for measuring the carbon footprint and concrete actions for Green Humanitarian Supply Chain Management are far from satisfactory and sufficient.
This thesis examines how such a negative feedback loop can be managed by applying climate information, and rethinking how humanitarian organizations can approach climate related natural hazards. In addition, this thesis discusses the challenges humanitarian organizations may encounter while trying to achieve more sustainable and environmentally friendly supply chain management. By applying the lens of agency theory, this thesis investigates how humanitarian organizations, and their partners can better work together in the increasingly complicated environment.
This thesis bridges the field practice and academic research. The findings are based on empirical evidence and insights from practitioners active in the field, as well as academic research aiming at explaining the phenomena from a theoretical perspective.
As climate change will continue to be a severe challenge to the society and climate related hazards continuously threaten the safety and livelihoods of vulnerable groups, the thesis can serve as a basis for practitioners and researchers who endeavour to solve these problems to build upon.