Justine Marty

Composition of the Jury

Abstract

Climate change issues are now ubiquitous in the daily lives of individuals, countries, governments, and businesses. A relatively recent sector, widely criticized for its environmental and ethical impacts, is the Internet of Things (IoT). These devices are present in many homes and exchange information with each other. They include phones, cars, smartwatches, wireless earbuds, and many others. Nanotechnologies, which are part of the IoT, also play a role in the ecological transition. They are found, for example, in electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines. Manufacturing all these devices requires the use of numerous raw materials, including rare metals, critical metals, rare earth elements, and conflict minerals. All these metals have significant environmental and ethical impacts during their extraction and throughout the entire IoT manufacturing process. Today, both consumers and businesses are increasingly aware of the impact of their activities and the efforts required to address the sustainability of these products. Customers, consumers, and users are increasingly involved in companies' supply chains and are becoming agents of change by proposing more sustainable solutions for both products and the processes related to their lifecycle. However, it seems easier to integrate these consumers into B2C companies, which are closer to consumers. This thesis addresses the following general issue: "Supply chain integration in B2B companies: Leveraging downstream actors to meet sustainability challenges in the context of the IoT." To answer this issue, a thesis based on published articles is presented. The first article is a literature review that examines the evolution of the literature concerning the integration of downstream actors in the supply chain and highlights the sustainability dimension. The second article, presented as a systematic literature review and outlining a comprehensive framework, explores how and through which methods these downstream actors can be integrated into business objectives and processes. Finally, the third article is a case study on rare metals that aims to understand how B2B companies in the IoT sector can integrate their downstream actors and through which methods.

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