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Sustainability and environmental issues are among the most pressing concerns for modern humanity, governments and environmentally conscious business organizations. Green supply chain management has been acknowledged as a key factor to promote organizational sustainability. Green supply chain management is evolving into an important approach for organizations in emerging economies to manage their environmental responsibility. Yet, despite their importance for easing environmental degradation and providing economic benefits, study of the drivers that influence green supply chain initiatives in an emerging economy is still an under‐researched area. Using survey data collected from ISO 14001 certified organizations from Malaysia, the purpose of this paper is to propose that the drivers that motivate firms to adopt green supply chain management can be measured by a second‐order construct related to the implementation of the firm's green supply chain initiatives.

Structural equation model was used to analyze a set of survey data to validate the research hypotheses.

The research reveals four crucial drivers of green supply chain adoption that collectively affect a firm's green purchasing, design‐for‐environment and reverse logistics initiatives. This study uncovers several crucial relationships between green supply chain drivers and initiatives among Malaysian manufacturers.

The role of the drivers is crucial in motivating these firms to adopt green supply chain initiatives and facilitate their adoption. Firms in emerging countries need to realize that green supply chain initiatives can result in significant benefits to their firms, environment, and the society at large which gives them additional incentives to adopt these initiatives.

The greening of the supply chain initiative, as implemented by world‐class ISO 14001 certified companies, has already demonstrated how much it contributes towards greening the industry of the region they operate in. The SMEs have been involved in such a green supply chain only to the extent of their participation as suppliers, distributors and in other capacities as business partners complementing the world‐class companies. All the same, in many regions, the environmental initiatives taken by the SMEs do conform to the different phases of the green supply chain. This study investigates if in the Philippine context this postulate is indeed true, and with the help of an empirical survey, establishes that the SME population in the Philippines do indeed carry out different phases of the green supply chain, though in a heterogeneous manner. This would be indeed expected given the heterogeneity in size and nature of business for SMEs in this region.

This paper aims to describe what facilitates small and medium‐sized suppliers in participating in green supply chain initiatives. These initiatives are inter‐organizational initiatives attempting to improve environmental performance throughout the entire supply chain. This paper seeks to examine buyer green supply chain management practices, government involvement, and internal readiness of the suppliers themselves, as possible drivers.

The research framework and hypotheses were examined by using a mail survey conducted in South Korea in 2005. The empirical analysis used data from 142 small and medium‐sized suppliers. Validity and reliability of the scales for the construct of interest were assessed through a factor analysis and Cronbach‐alpha test. To test the hypotheses for the drivers of suppliers' willingness to participate in green supply chain initiatives, hierarchical linear regression was adopted.

The study finds that buyer environmental requirements and support were positively linked to their suppliers' willingness to participate in green supply chain initiatives. The government can play an important role in motivating these suppliers. Finally, the paper reveals that the more slack resources and organizational capabilities suppliers had, the more willingly they were to participate in those initiatives.

This research is one of the few studies which explore the drivers of participation in green supply chain initiatives by considering small and medium‐sized suppliers and their most important stakeholders, including buyers and the government.

Global outsourcing shifts manufacturing jobs to emerging countries, which provides new opportunities for improving their economic development. The authors develop and test a theoretical model to predict first, how sustainable supply chain initiatives might influence reverse logistics outcomes and second, the impact of eco-reputation and eco-innovation orientation strategies on the deployment of sustainable supply chain initiatives. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The proposed new model of antecedents and outcomes of sustainable supply chain initiatives underwent a rigorous empirical test through structural equation modeling with samples from an emerging market.

The results show that firms that implement sustainable supply chain initiatives can realize positive reverse logistics outcomes; the study also provides new insights into eco-innovation and eco-reputation strategic orientations as theoretically important antecedents of sustainable supply chain initiatives.

Though the authors identify three components of sustainable supply chain initiatives, other components could exist, and ongoing research should investigate them.

The findings have important implications for managers in emerging markets seeking to initiate ecologically friendly business practices. The authors offer strong evidence of the benefits obtained from reverse logistics in sustainable supply chain initiatives. Policy makers and firms attempting to nurture sustainable supply chain initiatives should not overlook the important role of eco-reputation and eco-innovation strategic orientations, which the results identify as important enablers.

This study offers evidence of the critical role of eco-reputation and eco-innovation strategic orientations in deploying sustainable supply chain initiative programs, as well as of their mutual effects. This study also offers empirical evidence that implementing sustainable supply chain initiatives leads to reverse logistics, creating value, and a new source of competitive advantages.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss research gaps and the potential applications of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in an internal benchmarking process used to identify improvement areas when firms attempt to adopt green initiatives with a supply chain perspective.

By means of a detailed literature review, the paper distinguishes several gaps in previous studies that have investigated green supply chains, supply chain management and benchmarking issues.

Past research that analyses the challenges firms encounter when implementing green initiatives are lacking in scope and also in focus. Thus, the paper synthesises those findings, and proposes a novel framework and approach to apply AHP to examine various potential challenges firms and supply chains might be faced with when adopting green initiatives.

The investigation is conceptual in nature.

Despite the limitations of the paper, its findings and proposals can be applied directly to advise future research and practice, especially when firms are confronted with the prospects of implementing environmentally‐friendly business practices.

The application of AHP to study the various themes mentioned above is not new. Nevertheless, no previous investigation has identified the limitations in those studies. Furthermore, no previous paper has proposed a multitier AHP approach to analyse the problems firms taking part in a supply chain might encounter when implementing green initiatives.

In the current highly competitive market, most organizations are moving away from reactive and compliance-based to proactive environmental management. This proactive approach to environmental management calls for taking a strategic approach to adoption of green practices beyond an organization’s internal borders. In this respect, incorporating green practices into a firm’s supply chain has attracted interest of operations management scholar and practitioners. The influence of external pressures on the adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices has been established in the literature. This research posits that the adoption of GSCM practices is also driven by a firm’s internal strategic factors including its key resources and competitive strategy. It also suggests that these direct effects are further mediated by the green strategies (GSs) adopted in companies. Theoretically, these relationships are supported by combining the institutional theory with the natural resource-based view. A structural equation modeling is applied to formulate and analyze the relationships and the mediating effect using a survey data collected from 139 ISO14001-certified manufacturers in Malaysia. The results verified the mediating effect of GS adoption on the relationship between internal and external strategic factors, and GSCM practices. This research has made an original contribution to knowledge by bridging the fields of strategic environmental management and GSCM.

Green supply chain management is a concept that is gaining popularity in the South East Asian region. For many organizations in this region it is a way to demonstrate their sincere commitment to sustainability. However, if green supply chain management practices are to be fully adopted by all organizations in South East Asia, a demonstrable link between such measures and improving economic performance and competitiveness is necessary. This paper endeavors to identify potential linkages between green supply chain management, as an initiative for environmental enhancement, economic performance and competitiveness amongst a sample of companies in South East Asia.

For this purpose a conceptual model was developed from literature sources and data collected using a structured questionnaire mailed to a sample of leading edge ISO14001 certified companies in South East Asia followed by structural equation modelling.

The analysis identified that greening the different phases of the supply chain leads to an integrated green supply chain, which ultimately leads to competitiveness and economic performance. Future research should empirically test the relationships suggested in this paper in different countries, to enable comparative studies. A larger sample would also allow detailed cross‐sectoral comparisons which are not possible in the context of this study.

This paper presents the first empirical evaluation of the link between green supply chain management practices and increased competitiveness and improved economic performance amongst a sample of organizations in South East Asia.

The paper aims to study the relationship between corporate social responsibility, green supply chain management, and operational performance and the moderating effects of relational capital on these relationships.

The authors conduct an empirical study with a structural equation modeling approach to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility—constructed by the quality and environmental responsibility, green supply chain management—including green supplier and customer management and operational performance—manifested by quality, cost, flexibility, and delivery performance using data from 308 manufacturers in China. Besides, the authors explore the moderating effect of supplier and customer relational capital on these relationships.

The findings indicate that a company's quality and environmental responsibility significantly impacts its green supply chain management practices, which further improve its operational performance in quality, cost, flexibility, and delivery. In addition, supplier and customer relational capital strengthens the influence of environmental responsibility on green supply chain management. While supplier relational capital reinforces the impact of green supplier management on flexibility and delivery performance, customer relational capital only strengthens the influence of green customer management on flexibility performance.

The study enriches the extant literature by developing a holistic framework integrating corporate social responsibility, green supply chain management, relational capital, and operational performance and unraveling their intricate relationships. The authors’ findings help practitioners prioritize proactive steps in environmental conservation more than achieving operational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to identify important factors which contribute to the evolution of Green Supply Chain (GSC) initiatives framework as a result of sustained lean strategies predominantly but not confined to aviation sector.

This research is exploratory in nature and studies lean management implementation environment with focus on developing a framework for a GSC established through a path of identifying waste minimization techniques which automatically contribute to green initiatives in supply chain design invariably qualifying an ordinary supply chain as GSC. The approach is of identifying the framework parameters for both carbon footprint analysis and lean management. The focus of study is cross-sectional, within and outside aviation industry based on the information collected through survey methodology.

The paper identifies the key factors that are responsible to make a “green” supply chain and presents a framework to establish the same through rigorous evaluation while not losing sight of lean management requirements so that operational management perspective is not lost.

The target of the study is the aviation industry and its supportive upstream and downstream beneficiaries. The study has implications for managers in all types of industrial environment, especially in aviation, in the era of globalized lean supply chain establishment which helps them to convert their present lean management initiatives to GSC.

Inputs obtained are from both literary and industrial research in a live environment and hence impacts lean management outlook and its benefits to industries.

This paper has vast impact on the social well being with the focus on techno – environmental green initiatives factor identification through simple implemented and available procedures with no additional cost implication.

This paper presents unique inputs regarding conversion of lean implementation scenario in aviation and other industries to a GSC model, with suitable incorporation of recognized factors which are outcome of complicated internal processes. It also tries to establish factors relevant for any organization in assessing lean initiatives.

Environmental friendliness, in context of industrial operations, is an issue that has evoked much interest among environmentalists, governments, academicians and other sections of society in recent times. The said development has been more profound and broad-based in developed economies of the world, though, the trend is catching fast in developing countries, as well. Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) is a management technique that aims to make a supply chain eco-friendly, without diluting the organizational objectives. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the scale of adoption and implementation of GSCM practices in the context of Indian industries.

The investigation used literature review approach to determine the current status of implementation of GSCM by Indian industry, and associated aspects of the same. Literature pertaining to the subject in context of non-Indian industries has also been studied for the purpose of rudimentary knowledge on the management concept, as well for comparing the measures taken by foreign-based companies with Indian ones.

The study shows that in general, Indian companies are lacking on the front of adoption and implementation of GSCM measures in their supply chains. Though, certain companies are showing appreciable enthusiasm for the eco-friendly concept, the same does not apply to majority of the Indian enterprises, owing to a multitude of factors. GSCM has the potential to drive economic gains, and can act as a big motivator for companies to go green. As India leaps towards higher levels of industrialization and economic growth, GSCM becomes more of a necessity rather than an option for Indian companies to survive the competition.

Findings from this study helps in discerning the present status of GSCM in the country, and assess the same in comparison to that of developed countries. The findings will also help the firms to have a greater understanding of their current standing and the possible gains that can accrue by adoption of GSCM practices in real. The philosophy, stance and endeavours of government with respect to GSCM has also been spelt out in the paper. The paper contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on various aspects of GSCM in the country and the trajectory that it will chart in future.

The paper though, brings forth the findings of other researches on the subject of GSCM practices in India in a consolidated manner, yet its value is reflected in the cohesive manner in which contrary findings have been analysed to present a comprehensive and holistic picture of GSCM implementation in India. An attempt has been made not only to assess the inputs of individual firms, but also of government and other stakeholders in their efforts to make supply chains more environment friendly.