Green supply chain practices and the selection of environmental technologies

Abstract

The pressure on manufacturing organizations to adopt benign processes and to develop greener products has increased significantly over the last decade. As such, several manufacturing organizations have turned to their suppliers and customers to find innovative solutions to environmental issues. Using the data from a survey of the Canadian and United States package printing industry, the linkage between green supply chain practices and the selection of environmental technologies is examined. This paper differs from other studies that have linked supply chain management to environmental technologies as it focuses specifically on green interactions between organizations in the supply chain. In particular, the paper explores the possible relation between environmental collaboration and environmental monitoring in the supply chain and the form of environmental investment characterized by three categories: pollution prevention, pollution control, and management systems. The results suggest that environmental collaboration with suppliers is positively associated with greater investment in pollution prevention technologies while such collaboration with customers has no impact on the adoption and the implementation of pollution prevention technologies. In contrast, environmental collaboration with suppliers is associated with fewer investments in management systems. Overall, green supply chain practices with customers have very little impact on environmental investment decisions.