Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table2. Importance of greening the supplier
Author
Years
Importance
Rajagopal &
Bernard
In order to reduce negative impact on natural environment, working with suppliers is a long-term
strategic advantage.
2006
Rao
2002
Working with suppliers to improve environmental performance.
Due to the new environment regulations, it requires a co-operative relationship and a close look at
the supplier's operations to determine whether it can ensure the necessary level of quality
Sroufe
2006
Table 3. Initiatives of greening the supplier
Author Years
Initiatives
1. Holding environmental awareness seminars for suppliers, 2. Guiding/helping suppliers to establish their own
environmental programs, 3. Bringing together suppliers in the same industry to share their knowledge and problems,
4. Informing suppliers about the benefits of environment-friendly production technologies, 5. Urging suppliers
to take environmental actions, 6. Choice of suppliers by environmental criteria, 7. Requiring suppliers to adopt
environment friendly practices, 8. Arranging funds to help suppliers with their environmental programs, 9. Sending
company auditors to appraise environmental performance and ensure compliance of suppliers.
Rao
Rao and
Holt
2002
2005
ment systems. Rao (2002) and Rao and Holt (2005)
also indicate that greening the supplier includes
nine initiatives, that can help their suppliers and
contractors to implement GSCM and improve
their performance. These are summarised in Table
3.
manufacture and recycle their product throughout
the whole product life cycle.
Many studies have identified that product
and process technologies are a critical driver of
boosting environmental performance for manu-
facturing operations (Cairncross, 1992; Hart,
1995; Schmidheiny, 1992). Klassen and Whybank
(1999) classified green innovation into two key
categories: product design and process. From the
product design perspective, they considered that
green product innovation includes the process
to modify an existing product's design in order
to reduce any negative impact on the environ-
ment during any stage of a product life cycle.
Moreover, Klassen and Whybank (1999) defined
green processes as the fundamental changes to
the manufacturing process that reduce any nega-
tive impact on the environment during material
acquisition, production, and delivery.
In some studies, environmental technologies
and innovations are regarded as a tool to limit or
reduce the negative impact of a product or service
on the environment (Shrivastava, 1995; Hellström,
2007). Nevertheless, Porter and Van Der Linde
(1995) have proposed that the potential advantage
of adopting these technologies can contribute to
Green Innovation
In recent years, customers have shown increasing
concern and awareness of environmental prob-
lems. In response, governments and Non Govern-
ment Organisations (NGO) have developed and
supported stringent environmental legislation and
increasing disposal costs, which has enabled the
development of new green technologies or in-
novation related to product and process designs.
Environmental regulations have also driven the
companies to implement 'green' technological
innovations such as clean production equipment
and process or green product innovation (Chen,
2008). Therefore, senior management need to
incorporate environmental issues within their
company strategies in order to enhance the green
image of their products and services. As a result,
companies have had to focus on how to reuse, re-
