Presenting a green supply chain deployment model focusing on the new technologies of the fourth industrial revolution

Purpose:  The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is currently a rapidly growing research topic (Chen et al., 2014). The technologies involved in Industry 4.0 transform analog and centralized workflows into digital and decentralized production processes, creating a structural change throughout entire production systems. These advancing technologies have a significant potential to greatly enhance production efficiency. For example, according to a McKinsey report, transitioning from conventional manufacturing to automated Manufacturing 4.0 can improve productivity by 45 to 55 percent. Industry 4.0 benefits the manufacturing sector in three key ways: vertical integration, horizontal integration, and end-to-end engineering (Liao et al., 2017). The issue of environmental protection and maintenance has been one of the most significant challenges in recent decades. Nearly all industries have acknowledged the importance of safeguarding the environment. Most manufacturing organizations strive to minimize waste generated during production and dispose of waste materials in an environmentally degradable manner (Charafi et al., 2017). Undoubtedly, the environmental impact of production organizations has raised considerable concern, ultimately prompting increased focus on sustainable practices that address environmental, economic, and social needs (Hossein et al., 2018). In fact, all organizations are required to strive for compatibility in their performance across economic, social, and environmental dimensions (Ziyad et al., 2018). This study aims to analyze the relationship between new digital technologies and their role in enhancing performance or mitigating the challenges associated with implementing green supply chain management.
 Methodology:  In terms of the implementation method, the current study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Questionnaires are distributed and collected to examine and analyze the data, enabling the interpretation of findings related to each research question. The statistical population of this study consists of two groups. The first part consists of experts familiar with the concepts of green supply chains and the new technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Since the modeling approach used in this research is prescriptive due to the lack of successful examples, the community involved in the qualitative phase includes experts and specialists related to the research topic, who will be selected in accordance with Awa’s guidelines while consulting relevant references.
The participants in the qualitative phase of this research were selected from university faculty members and steel industry experts. To develop the final model for establishing a green supply chain with a focus on the new technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, initial codes were extracted through interviews with experts in this field. These codes were then analyzed using thematic analysis in three stages: primary coding, sub-theme identification, and main theme development. During the main theme stage, the process involved linking categories with their sub-categories, as well as connecting categories at the levels of features and dimensions.
Finding and Results: This model includes 12 main themes: human resources, economic factors, social factors, strategic company activities, intra-organizational benefits, types of external pressures, the role of organizational interaction, product recycling, supplier management, quality index, technology index, and environmental index. It also includes 36 sub-themes, such as empowerment and teamwork, human resource development, employee participation, green human resource management, financial indices, resource investment, social responsibility, human capital development, consumer behavior, cooperation, strategic characteristics, environmental indicators, performance evaluation systems, innovation, reputation enhancement, improved productivity, cost savings, environmental laws, global competitive markets, government regulations, intra-organizational interactions, inter-organizational partnerships and communication, models of inter-organizational cooperation, pricing strategies and collection of used products, life cycle management, waste management based on the Internet of Things, closed-loop supply chains, product recycling infrastructure, characteristics of recyclable products, sustainability, transparency in performance, use of by-products, wide visibility, and green supplier selection.
Economic factors and various external pressures are exogenous and independent variables; they are external to the system and influence other variables without being affected themselves. The intra-organizational benefits variable is a dependent variable, as it is influenced solely by other variables. Mediated relationships were also identified among some variables. The results within the main themes indicated that the product is the most important theme, followed by supplier management, product recycling, intra-organizational benefits, and the environmental index