REVERSE LOGISTICS AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract

Currently, there is a worldwide concern about the environmental issue, with regard to ways of promoting the preservation of natural resources as a means of guaranteeing dignified, ecologically balanced and socially satisfied living conditions for all generations, without neglecting the economic growth factor. Thus, the path begins with the management of the environmental impacts generated by human and business activities, maintaining control over the rational use of natural resources, and imposing restrictions on economic activities, with a view to adopting new production models that safeguard the ecosystem and social benefits, in a way that allows promoting sustainable development, aiming for and maintaining socio-environmental sustainability. For this, it is possible to apply the Reverse Logistics system, a viable and safe instrument to correctly dispose of products and solid waste that were used at some point, through their return to a new life cycle: as raw material in manufacturing a new product, to be used for a different purpose than the original one, to be remanufactured, being allowed to add economic value with the recovery of the capital originally used, or simply to be collected in an appropriate place, avoiding random disposal and contributing to the preservation of the ecosystem. Faced with the desire to establish themselves in the face of market competition, companies are implementing reverse logistics mechanisms to offer consumers and potential customers a visual identity of their brand, linked to the concept of contributing to the socio-environmental sustainability of development.