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POLICY AND PRACTICE REVIEWS article

Front. Sustain.

Sec. Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsus.2025.1677700

Sustainable Supplier Evaluation

Provisionally accepted
  • 1University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
  • 2Ho Technical University, Ho, Ghana
  • 3Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

##E-01## The enactment of due diligence legislation, such as the German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains, in German Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz (LkSG), is reshaping global supply chain management by compelling companies to tackle heightened human rights and environmental risks in their supply chain. This study addresses the need for a comprehensive sustainability supplier evaluation framework by employing a systematic literature review with an expert survey of practitioners from German companies subject to LkSG. This methodology aligns academic findings with real-world practice and legal requirements, enriching the literature with practical insights. The results reveal that business practice prioritizes economic and social dimensions, whereas the literature focuses on economic and environmental dimensions. Although the most relevant economic and environmental criteria are consistent across both domains, the key social criteria show a notable misalignment. Managers can utilize the most relevant sustainability supplier evaluation criteria identified in this study to promote sustainable supply chains and ensure compliance with due diligence requirements. This research also highlights the high relevance of human rights as a social criterion, a dimension that has been historically under-recognized or implicitly addressed in the literature. ##E-01##

Keywords: Supplier evaluation, Supplier selection, Sustainability criteria, due diligence, high-risk suppliers, supply chain act, Humanrights

Received: 01 Aug 2025; Accepted: 23 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Kraft, Quayson and Kellner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Sarah Katharina Kraft, sarah-katharina.kraft@ur.de

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.