Green supply chain management drivers/pressures, practices and performance in Chinese construction industry

With the requirements of regulatory bodies, customers and business partners, Chinese construction sector have been driven to imitate and implement green supply chain management (SCM) for their companies, to gain economic benefits and to become sustainable. This research aims to investigate and identify green SCM practices that can potentially help improve environmental and economic performance of organisations in Chinese construction sector, leading to improved sustainability. With data collected from 103 companies in Chinese construction industry, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to derive groupings of green SCM pressures/ drivers, practices and performance. Analysis of variance and t-tests were introduced to assess the variations in green SCM pressures/drivers, practices and performance for different sized enterprises and different industry sectors. Using regression analysis, relationships between green SCM pressures/ drivers, practices and performance were examined. To gain in depth insight into the causal relationship among factors obtained from the empirical studies, two case studies were conducted. This research also explored and identified gaps existing between green SCM in Chinese construction industry and British construction industry through benchmarking exercise. The main findings from the empirical studies result reveal that: 1) Regulations and internal factors are considered as important green SCM drivers and pressures. Medium and large sized Chinese companies face higher regulatory pressures than small firms. 2) Case studies confirm that green SCM is not a new concept in Chinese construction industry. Companies have begun to change their focus from improvement in one supply chain entity to the entire supply chain. 3) Chinese construction companies seem to be more matured in their adoption of green procurement practices than companies in building material sector. 4) There is not any significant relationship between green SCM practices and performance since most of the enterprises just initiate implementing green SCM practices. Medium and large sized companies in Chinese construction industry have better economic performance than small sized companies. The results from the benchmarking exercise against British construction sector reveal that: 5) Green SCM implementation in British construction sector is more comprehensive and effective because customers and suppliers in Britain have more proactive involvement in adopting green SCM practices.