Adoption of green supply chain management practices and their impact on performance: an exploratory study of Indian manufacturing firms

Abstract

Research on green supply chain management (GSCM) or sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has attracted increased attention in recent years. Although GSCM/SSCM has been studied for developed and developing countries, there has been little information about the adoption of GSCM/SSCM practices in India. This article presents one of the earliest surveys on GSCM practices in Indian manufacturing firms. The items for the survey were developed based on the extant literature and feedback from corporates. Some of the major findings of the survey are as follows. We found that the state of adoption of GSCM practices by Indian firms was still in its infancy, the awareness of environmental sustainability was quite low among consumers, and the regulatory framework was also lacking in terms of promoting environmental sustainability. Results of data analysis showed that supplier collaboration for environmental sustainability had a positive impact on environmentally sustainable product design and logistics, which in turn was positively related to competitiveness and economic performance of the firm. We compared the results with the observations made by other researchers for developed and developing countries and provided managerial implications for the government and manufacturers as to what steps need to be taken to generate awareness towards environmental sustainability and facilitate the adoption of GSCM practices among Indian firms to a greater extent. We conclude the paper by indicating directions for future research on GSCM/SSCM.