SUPPLIER ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION €� THE RATIONALE FOR THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION

Background: Reducing negative environmental impacts is becoming more and more significant in many areas of management. It is related not only to introducing the concept of circular economy, but also to building and integrating closed-loop supply chains. It includes different aspects of buyer-supplier relationships, such as supplier selection and evaluation. The aim of this article is to determine the scope of use of supplier environmental evaluation and the possibilities for the development of this concept.

Methods: The focal study has an exploratory character. The research methods used are the review of the literature and a survey conducted using the computer-aided telephone interview (CATI) technique. The reviewed literature is related to the areas of supplier environmental evaluation and supplier assessment. The empirical study focusses on different areas of supplier environmental evaluation and supplier assessment environmental criteria using a novel approach not found in the literature.

Results: The results refer to the possibilities of practical application of the supplier environmental evaluation. One of these possibilities is to link different areas of supplier environmental evaluation with specific environmental criteria of supplier assessment.

Conclusions: The main implication for business is to focus activities related to reducing negative environmental impacts mainly on the compliance of the supplier with the buyer's needs and requirements related to the environmental performance and limiting environmental impacts. The originality of this article lies in the approach focussing on differentiation between the environmental assessment and the environmental evaluation of suppliers and determining the possibility of a practical application of SEE.