Apparel and textile suppliers' perspectives on the impact of buyers' purchasing practices on environmentally friendly operations
Date
2018
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to understand the impacts of apparel buyers’ purchasing practices on the environmentally friendly initiatives of the supplier firms. In addition to this, drivers, benefits and barriers to the suppliers’ environmentally friendly initiatives were taken into consideration to understand a more holistic set of variables associated with environmentally friendly operations. All of the data in this study were collected by one-on-one semi-structured interviews of the participants. Ten participants represented the companies, originating from eight different countries: Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong SAR, India, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Spain and Taiwan participated in this study. ☐ The study found cost saving as a benefit of the environmentally friendly initiatives. On the other hand, lack of funds was found to be a major barrier as well as consequence of negative purchasing practices. Second, suppliers showed increased concern about environmental certification and rating platforms as a driver of environmentally friendly operation. Suppliers pursued environmental certificates to show concern about the environmental friendliness of the company. Suppliers also participated in different rating platforms which are not discussed in the previous literature. Lastly, suppliers criticized buyers’ lack of knowledge about sustainability and supplier base which created hindrances to the environmentally friendly operation of the supplier firm. Future research can take a qualitative approach to analyze the relationship among different factors of the purchasing practices and environmentally friendly operation of the supplier firms. As this study considers suppliers’ opinions about buyers’ purchasing practices, further study can be conducted from the buyers’ side to analyze sustainable performance and practices of the supplier firms.
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Keywords
Social sciences, Barriers, Benefits, Environmental initiatives, Environmentally friendly performance, Purchasing practices, Sustainable supply chain