QUESTION

1. What motivates Green supply chain management among industries?

2. Discuss the benefits and challenges of Green Supply chain Management

3. What is the Malaysian governments involvement and implementation in line with current
National Technology Policy towards industries?

A supply chain is a system of organizations people, technology, activities, information and

resources, involved in moving a product or service from supplier or customer. Supply chain
activities transform natural resources, raw materials and components into finished product that
is delivered to end customer. Supply chain management is (SCM) is the management of a
network interconnected businesses involved in ta ultimate provision of product and service
packages required by end customers. Supply chain management spans all movement and storage
of raw materials, work in process inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of
consumption.
Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) has appeared as an environmental innovation which
integrates environmental concerns into supply chain management. GSCM has gained popularity
with both academic and practitioners. The purpose of the paper is to briefly review the recent
literatures of the GSCM and also determine the new direction area of this emerging field. A
detailed review is used to sort out the literature and develop the research direction of the study.
The review is focused on development of GSCM in a developed and developing countries
including all those researchers which is relevant to environmental and social sustainability
towards operation management and the supply chain. It shows that lack researches to examine
the adoption and implementation of GSCM practices especially in developing countries such as
Malaysia. Thus, the authors bring forward a proposed research direction on GSCM adoption and
implementation in Malaysias manufacturing industries.
The economic growth increases the level of energy and material consumption, which contribute
to the environmental issues and resource depletion problems. It has become increasingly
significant for organizations facing competitive, regulatory, and community pressures to balance
economic and environmental performance. Nowadays, most organizations are starting to go
green in their business as concern to environmental sustainability. They have realized the greater
benefit of the green technology adoption in business operation, which also affected suppliers and
customers.

Environmental issues under legislation and directives from customer especially in the US, the
European Union (EU), and Japan become an important concern for manufacturers. As a result,
Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) emerges as a new systematic environmental
approach in supply chain management and has been increasingly accepted and practices by
forward-thinking organization.

The current changing in environmental requirements that influenced manufacturing activities

had increased attention in developing environmental management (EM) strategies for the supply
chain. Thus, the concept of GSCM arises as a new systematic approach and becoming an
important factor for business activities today. Zhu et al also claimed GSCM can be regarded as
an environmental innovation. By integrating the green concept to the supply chain concept, it
has created a new research agenda where the supply chain will have a direct relation to the
environment. Thus, it becomes interesting issue because the past literatures showed these two
paradigms were related each other.

It is important to integrate environmental management practices into the whole supply chain
management in order to achieve a greener supply chain and maintain competitive advantage and
also increase business profit and market share objectives. Various definition of GSCM exists in
the literature. Accordingly, Zhu and Sarkis defines Green Supply Chain Management as has
ranged from green purchasing to integrated supply chains starting from supplier, to
manufacturer, to customer and reverse logistics, which is closing the loop. According to
Srivastava Green Supply Chain Management can be defined as integrating environmental
thinking into supply chain management, including product design, material sourcing and
selection, manufacturing process, delivery of the final product to the consumers as well as endof-life management of the product after its useful life.

The quality revolution of the 1980s and the supply chain revolution of the 1990s extend
the green supply chain literature with the beginning of corporate environmental management,
environmentally conscious manufacturing strategy, and supply chain management literature. It
has become clear that the best practices call for integration of environmental management with
ongoing operations.
Green supply-chain management (GSCM) is gaining increasing interest among researchers and
practitioners of operations and supply chain management. The past literature also shows that
most researchers have studied the GSCM adoption and implementation on developed countries
such as Japan, Germany, Portuguese, UK and Taiwan and so on. Still limited studies have
examined the GSCM practices in developing countries.

In order to realize the sustainable development of eco-friendly, controlled use of natural

resources enhanced to minimize the negative influence on the environment. To focus on green
technology applications in every industrial activity including supply is believed to affect the
performance of the global environment. It includes the development and application of products,
equipment, systems and natural resources that can reduce the negative effects of human
activities.Literature proves that the organization should adopt green technology approach for
being an environmentally friendly company social responsibility. Manaktola and Jauhari (2007)
found that environmental sustainability efforts need to involve multiple parties, including
customers and suppliers in a supply chain. It is supported by Baharum and Pitt (2009)that
identifies the key success factors in green practices also influenced by external third parties or
companies. Various approaches have been used to improve the efficiency of green technology.

However, this study focuses on the green supply chain management (or GSCM), which is an
important approach in generating breakthrough green technology applications Rao (2007).
Found that GSCM is innovative in the supply chain management and operational performance
driven environment, including environmental management systems (EMS) and ISO 14001
certification. The increase in environmental regulations Pilkington &Dyerson (2006) .Urged the
organization to join the GSCM and increase competition in terms of product manufacturing,

inventory management, suppliers, customers, and systems infrastructure in a global supply chain
management .

There are various definitions and concepts have been discussed in the literature, however, there
is no special definition describes GSCM and its applications. GSCM can be defined according to
the study of philosophy in which the elements of supply chain management (or SCM) and the
environment are combined in one concept. It depends on the perspective and purpose of GSCM
implementation in an organization

Benefits of green supply chain management as below.

Positive impact on financial performance

Despite ample evidence to the contrary, there persists a myth that going green costs additional
expense. Some of the factors responsible for persistence of this myth are inertia, the lack of a
systematic approach and an unwillingness to engage in sustained and changed thinking that is
necessary to create a green supply chain.However, the most fundamental benefit of Green
Supply Chains is a positive long term net impact on the financial performance of the
organization. This has been proven by both analysis and empirical evidence.

Sustainability of Resources
Green Supply Chains sponsor the effective utilization of all of the available productive resources
of organizations. By incorporating Green Supply Chain Management thinking through their
entire business decision making process, organizations may now purchase green input resources
that will flow through environmental friendly production process to produce the desired green
outputs.

Lowered Costs/Increased Efficiency

At the core of Green Supply Chain Management is the principle of reducing waste by increasing
efficiencies. Effective management of resources and suppliers, can reduce production costs,
promote recycling and also, the reuse of raw materials. Also, the production of hazardous
substances can be reduced, thereby preventing organizations from being fined as a result of
violating environmental regulations.

Overall, the green supply chain industry sector has a number of challenges. However, it is first
important to note that when we look at supply chain, we start with product innovation and the
marketing impact. We also end at the supply chain with consumer products and product recall.
Sales planning are a second function. The third function would be manufacturing planning and
manufacturing operations. Here are few challenges of green supply chain management.

Standards

Standards are the most confusing aspect the challenge is that each organization may have to
comply with all of these different standards. They may comply with only part, and the issue
faced by manufacturers, retailers and supply chain professionals is that the awareness or knowing
what to go after is a challenge.

The first step for someone new to the sector is to understand what standard they need to comply
with and understand what direction to go. This needs to be done first.

Business Case Development

Social responsibility, competitive pressures, as well as lot of others issues out there are hard to
measure. Business case development is one of those things that organizations are fighting
through.

Communications Planning

The environmental sustainability green space is very broad. It encompasses everything from
renewables to various definitions and terms. Organizations have to get the communication
strategy under control pretty quick as they start to go out and implement new programs.

Malaysias new inter-ministerial green technology council has promised to galvanize efforts to
form an integrated national green strategy. The key challenge faced by the Malaysian

government in going green has been the absence of an institution tasked solely to drive green
technology. Green technology efforts have always been fragmented with different ministries
and agencies running their own projects. Environmental initiatives often involve several parties
across the government, so we need to first strengthen the institution. The council will take a
consolidated approach, providing a national strategic focus and plan. According to Prime
Minister Razak (pictured), the government will lead by example by adopting green technology in
government facilities.
The Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water which the Green Technology Division
falls under will be the key coordinator and facilitator for the green technology roadmap. It has
already taken a lead in going green. Its building is the first to be rated a Low Energy Office in
Malaysia and reported energy savings of more than 50 per cent compared to new
office buildings.

Findings from the past survey by Insight (2008) showed that 52% of companies received benefits
in terms of reducing logistics cost and have reduction in manufacturing costs when the
companies practice green supply chain in their business activities. Logistics activities are one of
the major and important parts along the supply chain. Besides that, the results revealed that 47%
of companies benefited from green supply chain by giving them a competitive advantage in order
to compete with other companies. While survey from Aberdeen Group (2008) found that by
practicing green supply chain it can help to reduce emissions, reduce waste and improve
disposal.
Green logistics practices by switching into alternative fuel such as biodiesel and bioethanol can
help to give efficient fuel consumption because of this characteristic of alternative fuel. Beside
that this fuel is very cheap compared with the other development of other renewable fuel
alternative such as hydrogen (McKinnon, 2010). Green logistics practices such as true recycling
or re-use of plastic products can significantly reduce the energy required across the life cycle
because the high energy inputs needed to process the requisite virgin materials greatly exceeds
the energy needs of the recycling or re-use process steps (Arvanitoyannis, 2007). Ubeda (2010)
found that green logistics practices such as of choice to reduce number of routes, introducing

backhauling in logistics activities and design the shortest routes can control the emissions of
carbon dioxide emission.
This can be very beneficial to the environment and to the society because reduction in this type
of gases can help to reduce environmental impact such global warming and at the same time
improve the society health status. According to Rodrigue (2001) if the company less practice
just-in-time (JIT) in logistics activities it can help to reduce traffic congestion, reduce more
energy consumption and reduce from producing more emissions CO2, particulates, NOx, etIn
order to satisfy todays customer demands, it is not enough to offer cheap and good product, the
consumer today, also draws much attention to whether was manufactured and delivered in a
manner which does not adversely affect the protection of the environment.

In conclusion customers coming from poor countries, pay no attention to either the quality of our
products are environmentally nature this type of customer is only interested in the offered price
of the product. However, despite the global trend is just so environmental awareness and firms
seeking to meet the demand of customers are forced to introduce measures to protect the
environment. However in addition to improving economic performance and build a positive
corporate image among consumers, green supply chain allows the realization of goals such as
reduction or complete elimination of hazardous materials that are used both in industry
agriculture, improvement and implementation of ecology behavior, systems design, equipment,
machinery and long term relationships, which in time will bring environmental and economic
benefits.

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