Benefits of a Green Supply Chain
Benefits of a Green Supply Chain
“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.” ~Albert Schweitzer Currently, our world is experiencing radical changes in the earth’s ecosystems due to man’s misuse and neglect. Human beings have disrupted the balance between the energy systems and all living species. Therefore, our entire global ecosystem is deeply flawed and unbalanced. Al Gore believes, “The emergent power and accelerating momentum of Earth Inc., the rapid growth of destructive resource-consumption patterns, the absence of global leadership, and the dysfunctional governance in the community of nations have all combined to produce flows of pollution that are seriously damaging the integrity of the planetary climate balance that is essential to the survival of civilization” (Gore, 2013, p.280). Part of the solution to the problem will be to integrate a plan for a company’s supply chain operation to become more “green” to help in “attracting customers who value sustainability and making the world more sustainable” (Chopra & Meindl, 2013, p.501). Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) may help companies achieve several benefits in their bottom lines: economic, environmental and social. GSCM is defined as “an increasingly widely-diffused practice among companies that are seeking to improve their environmental performance. The motivation for the introduction of GSCM may be ethical (e.g. reflecting the values of managers) and/or commercial (e.g. gaining a competitive advantage by signaling environmental concern)” (Testa & Iraldo, 2010, p.953). There are two basic factors which determine why a company adopts a green supply chain. External factors are “mostly linked to stake-holder’s pressure” and internal factors “are a specific business-led strategic process.” (Testa & Iraldo, 2010, p.954). External factors may be influenced by three institutional mechanisms: “normative,
“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.” ~Albert Schweitzer Currently, our world is experiencing radical changes in the earth’s ecosystems due to man’s misuse and neglect. Human beings have disrupted the balance between the energy systems and all living species. Therefore, our entire global ecosystem is deeply flawed and unbalanced. Al Gore believes, “The emergent power and accelerating momentum of Earth Inc., the rapid growth of destructive resource-consumption patterns, the absence of global leadership, and the dysfunctional governance in the community of nations have all combined to produce flows of pollution that are seriously damaging the integrity of the planetary climate balance that is essential to the survival of civilization” (Gore, 2013, p.280). Part of the solution to the problem will be to integrate a plan for a company’s supply chain operation to become more “green” to help in “attracting customers who value sustainability and making the world more sustainable” (Chopra & Meindl, 2013, p.501). Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) may help companies achieve several benefits in their bottom lines: economic, environmental and social. GSCM is defined as “an increasingly widely-diffused practice among companies that are seeking to improve their environmental performance. The motivation for the introduction of GSCM may be ethical (e.g. reflecting the values of managers) and/or commercial (e.g. gaining a competitive advantage by signaling environmental concern)” (Testa & Iraldo, 2010, p.953). There are two basic factors which determine why a company adopts a green supply chain. External factors are “mostly linked to stake-holder’s pressure” and internal factors “are a specific business-led strategic process.” (Testa & Iraldo, 2010, p.954). External factors may be influenced by three institutional mechanisms: “normative,