The existing literature reviews on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) lack in portraying the recent developments, possible application areas and the importance of SSCM in the development of nations' industrial economy. The main aim of this article is to explore the emerging aspects, present trends and conduct the meta-analysis by performing a systematic review of the available SSCM literature. The present study conducts a systematic review of 326 SSCM articles published across referred peer reviewed journals during 2001-2017 in various domains such as business and management, engineering, healthcare and services. During the analysis of the literature, various categories such as publication year, journals, research design type, industry sectors, multi-criteria decision-making techniques, enablers and barriers are adopted. The present study is equally beneficial for practitioners and researchers as it displays a better understanding of SSCM and its developments over different industry sectors.