A Survey on the Impact of Green Procurement in the Cement Manufacturing Industry in Kenya.

Many firms are learning that being environmentally friendly and sustainable has numerous benefits. (O.C Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell, 2015). This could enable them to increase goodwill from various stakeholders and also save money in the long term. This will mean that they are being more efficient and less wasteful of resources, which will enable them to be more competitive by satisfying stakeholders. The CEO of

These companies have a legal obligation to follow all the laws set by the environmental authorities, federal state or the local government. Green energy is one of the major ways that the organizations are using to minimize the impact on the environment by reducing waste or minimizing the use of fossil fuels.

Our environmental policy already commits us to working with our suppliers, contractors and partners to minimise our environmental impact and to encourage ecologically sustainable and, where possible, local sourcing of products and services

To a regular person, the global concern about ‘going green’ might appear as a result of speculation from nervous politicians and alarmed citizens. But the reality is totally different. In recent years, businesses have gained much knowledge about the impact of their activities on environment and in turns their customers. Businesses are successively venturing to earn greater revenues. In this process, they are trying out every best possibility to entice their contributors- from customers to investors. Regardless to say, stakeholders these days are more socially responsible than ever. So to keep up to their expectations, businesses are also trying to expand or limit their activities to save the environment- from doing relentless research on lowering waste to lean management and even trying out various eco-friendly activities. Despite of all these, the ultimate question remains unanswered if it is financially beneficial to adapt those initiatives that is going to serve the

2). Implementing environmental friendly programs comes with many benefits such as: gaining like-minded consumers, possibly bringing in newer clients, saving the company money through the use of eco-friendly business practices, providing a healthier workplace for employees, thus reducing sick days which decrease efficiency in the workplace, and tax

The inceptive goal of the project was to create a set of concrete guidelines for sustainable procurement within UCLA Housing, with an emphasis on commonly used office supplies. The current UCOP and H&HS guidelines on purchasing are vague and makes it difficult for purchasers to discern between what is environmentally preferred or what is not. Emma suggested for the team to create a system of comprehensive purchasing standards that would streamline sustainable procurement and maximize UCLA Housing’s use of eco-friendly goods. The team intended to create the guidelines based on several third party certifications like the EPA’s Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines and University of California Sustainable Practices Policy. However, we soon discovered that the EPA’s Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines was the only set of guidelines that incorporated office supplies. Furthermore, the

The barrier I have selected is the greenwashing mindset. According to the article in “The Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics”, “the greenwashing mindset—otherwise known as companies exaggerating trivial environmental changes to products, services, and processes—pervades many discussions of the environment. Characteristic of this mindset is the view that business could never act on values other than profit maximization, and that whenever a company engages in something that looks like it might be good for the environment, people should be deeply skeptical. In reality, this mindset asserts that the company is probably trying to make money, create a public relations smoke screen, avoid some future cost, or engage in other narrowly self-interested schemes.”

In recent years, when the concept of sustainability is raising up, there is high percentage of customers who aware about the green products (Rather & Rajendran 2014), they do not only consider about the product or

On your weekly trip to the supermarket it’s easy to find a number of products, from coffee to dishwashing soap, that flaunt their green attributes” (American Psychological Association, 2010). With such rumors of greenwashing, consumers are more confused than ever. However, some consumers know the tricks and are coming to find that there are companies whose marketing practices are legit, not exaggerated or deceiving. APA also found that, “people are willing to spend more of their hard-earned green on green products, according to a 2008 survey of 9,000 adults performed by the global business firm Boston Consulting Group” (American Psychological Association, 2010). Consumers who are willing to pay more for a product or service are assuming that they are purchasing a healthier, safer, and better quality product or service for the environment.

Throughout the 90’s there was a growing pandemic of unethical practices and morally wrong operations when it came to the production methods of manufacturers and other parties trying to satisfy the consumer’s needs. These ways of operations left a dissatisfying taste for the new conscientious consumers, who also started to wonder more about the life cycle of the goods they consumed. The market for these consumers started growing more rapidly which developed what is called eco labels. Eco labelling is defined as, “a voluntary method of environmental performance certification and labelling that is practiced around the world. An eco-label is a label which identifies overall proven environmental preference of a product or service within a specific product/service category”. Eco labels started in 1994 but really started to take off when 15 of the most influential organizations got together to assist in developing and working toward their shared goals, principles, and ideas by building standards behind their eco labels.

One major problem as far as companies using green marketing and why it isn’t working is that the relatively vague definition of green marketing leaves a lot of room for loopholes. Green marketing, by simply being defined as “the marketing of products that are assumed to be environmentally safe,” allows companies to take advantage of this idea even if their products are not the best example of green ones (McClendon 1). Most companies also don’t practice what they preach in such

‘EcoVadis’ established a business model that has the objective of ‘becoming a trusted partner of procurement organizations aiming at implementing sustainable supply management practices’. In doing so, EcoVadis confidently established its competitive advantage by uniting the broad social concern (and hence value placed upon) sustainability in all aspects of supply chains with rapidly evolving consumer and industry demands. EcoVadis was co-founded by Pierre-François Thaler, an electrical engineer with experience in purchasing. The firm provides a particular service that allows large organisations to assess the environmental and social performance of their suppliers. This supply chain analysis, verification and certification service, is the product that EcoVadis sells.

For decades, industries incorporating green projects have focused mainly on cost down and value analysis by only paying attention to the compliance issue in order to minimize the risk, maintaining health, and protecting the environment as a whole. With rapid economic progress and tremendous advances of science and technology, awareness of environmental protection has now become a worldwide consensus and in need of serious attention in sustaining the needs of our environment.

The difficult task is to integrate industrial development and environmental management to mutually co-exist. The initial step is re-design the basic structure of the traditional supply chain to a green supply chain which is accommodated with the environmental management which is associated with the reductions in resource utilization and waste generation.

Even though research into green procurement is at the nascent stage, academics findings on green PSM practices is starting to appear (e.g. Zhu and Sarkis, 2007 and cited in Schoenherr et al, 2011). Research has so far addressed the perspectives of the economies of recycling and reclamation. Attention is now shifting to broader managerial concerns. Firms take a proactive approach if they view environmental PSM as an opportunity, while others that view it primarily as a cost related to compliance take the reactive approach. Understanding the trade-offs associated with taking a proactive versus reactive approach is limited (Handfield et al. 1997 and cited in Schoenherr et al, 2011, Bowen et al, 2001). But the foundation of sustainable management of the supply chains is the mindset of a company. As such the overall culture and leadership are important drivers to green SCM (Pagell and Wu, 2009; Holt and Gbobadian, 2009 as cited in Beske and Seuring, 2014). Furthermore, government regulations have changed over time, and the investigation of how PSM have responded and adapted to these changes provides an exciting new research area (Schoenherr et al, 2011, Min, and Galle, 2001 ).