Green supply chain practices and company performance in Portuguese manufacturing sector

Abstract

Green supply chain management is an important organizational approach to reducing strain on the environment. Many companies are under pressure from customers, media, governments, and investors, among others, to implement green practices. This exploratory paper investigates the relationships between internal and external green practices of eight Portuguese companies from different industrial sectors and their impact on economic and environmental performance. The relationship was analyzed based on the data collected from 22 semi‐structured interviews with general managers, procurement and environmental/safety managers, and through secondary data collected from reports, websites and companies' internal documentation. The analysis identifies the most important green practices considered by managers, as well as the performance measures that are most appropriate and most widely used to evaluate the influence of green practices on corporate performance. A conceptual model was derived to assess the influence of green practices on focal company economic and environmental performance. The results support four of five propositions of this research, and it is possible to conclude that the companies believe that with the adoption of green supply chain practices, they can be more competitive in the market. Due to the scope of the green practices, the relationship between green practices and economic performance was inconclusive. Internal and external green supply chain practices contribute to improved environmental performance because for all companies, there is a positive relationship between green practices and environmental performance in terms of energy, water consumption, waste, and air emissions reduction.

Internal green integration and environmental performance: The predictive power of proactive environmental strategy, greening the supplier, and environmental collaboration with the supplier

“…Moreover, internal integration moderates the association between green innovation performance and green customer integration rather than that between green supplier integration and green innovation performance. According to Pinto (2020), in terms of water consumption, energy, air emissions reduction, and waste, green practices and EP are positively and significantly associated with each other.…”

How environmental awareness and corporate social responsibility practices benefit the enterprise? An empirical study in the context of emerging economy

“…There is no doubt that products' ecological design is primarily based on senior management decisions, reflecting their moral and ethical values. The firms also focus on innovative products that have less impact on the environment and meet market requirements and satisfy customers, which helps the firm gain a competitive advantage (Pinto , 2020). Furthermore, green production practices also proved significant and positive in influencing firm reputation and environmental performance (Baah et al , 2020).…”

Performance evaluation of reverse logistics in food supply chains in a circular economy using system dynamics

“…According to Vlachos (2016), reserve logistics activities and capabilities have a direct impact on a firm's performance. Performance measures that indicate the influence of green practices on company performance need to be further investigated (Pinto, 2020). Previous studies have rarely explained which particular environmental management practices or strategies have more impact on improving a firm's performance (Singh & Trivedi, 2016).…”

“…Analyzing the environmental impact of a company's activities, as well as reducing CO 2 emissions, gives an indication of a firm's performance (Capece et al, 2017). More studies are needed on green practices and to measure green performance (Pinto, 2020). In addition, many business decisions in RL and closed‐loop supply chain (CLSC) have an environmental impact; however, literature is still scarce on the impact of business decisions on the performance of RL and CLSCM.…”