Green Supply chain management practices

 

Environmental problems have been growing and spreading faster over the last few decades than forest fire, country-to-region, region-to-territory at world level, which is a major cause of climate change and global warming. Furthermore, the lack of natural resources and air and water pollution have a severe effect on fauna and flora, human life with numerous diseases that they cause, such as ischemic heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstruction pulmonary disease, stroke, Covid-19, etc. While, the green supply chain concept occurs to mitigate environmental degradation and control air, water and waste pollution through the adoption of green practices in business operations. Undeniably, the basic ideology behind green concept is to enhanced environmental sustainability, but firms adopt green concept as “kill two enemies with one bullet”. Because the green supply chain will minimize emissions and production costs, as well as boost economic growth, create competitive advantages in terms of consumer loyalty, positive image and credibility, and provide better opportunities to export their goods to environmentally friendly countries.

The concept of green idea expands with new technologies and strategies to maintain environmental sustainability which can be recognized by corporate social responsibility, green manufacturing, waste reduction, sustainable / environmentally friendly supply chain recycling and re-manufacturing, green supply chain, etc. The term sustainable or green supply chain applies to the notion that sustainable environmental practices should be incorporated into the conventional supply chain. This can include processes such as procurement and purchase of material from manufacturers, product design, product production and assembly, delivery and end-of - life management. Instead of reducing the negative effect of the company and supply chain operations, the green supply chain includes adding value and/or generating value across the entire chain operations. Reducing air, water and waste pollution is undeniably the main goal of the green supply chain, whilst green operations also improve the performance of companies Less waste production, product reuse and recycling, lower manufacturing costs, higher asset utilization, better image building and greater customer satisfaction.

Figure displays a green supply chain of child’s crib manufacturer as an example:

Green supply chain is what brings out the implementations of the main sustainable development strategy. It underlines how green practices can be implemented in companies to reduce environmental degradation and enhance the economic and operational performance of companies.

·         Application of environmental management concepts across the entire client order cycle, including design, procurement, manufacture and assembly, packaging, logistics and distribution.

·         Integrating environmental thinking into supply chain management, including ecological product design, the procurement of green materials and components, re-engineering of production steps towards an environmentally friendly, reverse logistics management of the product after its useful life.

·         Integrating environmental issues into the supply chain of businesses like reverse logistics.

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Reducing and monitoring the detrimental environmental effects of the supply chain.

·         Adoption of ecological design, procurement of green materials and chemicals and providing green training to ethically-led employees.

·         Green supply chain integrates environmentally friendly concept into supply chain management to improve environmental sustainability with various green practices including green procurement, green distribution and warehousing, green transport with the use of bio fuels, green production processes and end-of - life management of products.

 

In the world, as awareness of the environment is growing, companies are facing tremendous pressure from various stakeholders, including government and consumers, to reduce their harmful environmental effect. In reality, the corporate sector needs to consider combining its business practices with sustainability in the service and manufacturing industries and reducing end-to - end supply chain costs to achieve competitive advantage. Increasing impacts of global warming, climate change, waste and air pollution issues have implied increasing worldwide expert attention to think more environmentally friendly and find the best possible solution to "green”, GSCM (green supply chain management) identified plays a role in motivating organizational sustainability. GSCM deserves a persistent community concern in developed nations, with the environmental concerns continually rising. Moreover, it recently awakened the developing countries to the green movement.