Abstract:
Environmental sustainability in recent years has become a growing concern for
businesses worldwide. Increased environmental awareness, pressure from key
stakeholders, internal and external environmental factors have been the driving force for
organizations to adopt green supply chain management practices. The purpose of the
study is to identify drivers to adoption of green supply chain management practices and
explore how have the green practices been adopted in the apparel industry of Pakistan.
The textile sector of Pakistan has not been extensively investigated in literature in terms
of green supply chain management.
As the purpose of the study is exploratory, therefore, qualitative research methodology
has been used in which multiple case studies have been evaluated. Five green supply
chain management practices were identified from literature, namely: green purchasing,
cooperation with customers, internal environment management, green logistics and eco design. Data has been collected from three textile companies based in Punjab. The
analysis was done in two phases; within case and cross-case. It was observed that only
the companies selling to the international market have adopted green supply chain
management practices of green purchasing, co-operation with customers, internal
environment management and eco-design. As far as green logistics is concerned, the only
initiative taken in the local market is the use of biodegradable bags and that too for
specific orders. Hence, it can be inferred that green logistics is in the initial stages of
adoption in Pakistan and it will take time for the companies to adopt green logistics.
A unique insight found in this study relates to driver behind adoption of green practices.
While emerging economies like India and China are strongly driven by government rules
and regulation to adopt green practices, in the case of Pakistan, international customers
and internal organization factors mainly drive these practices. Future researchers can
widen the scope of the study by exploring more practices like green manufacturing and
by increasing the sample size. Moreover, they can use the same framework and observe it
in a different industry.
