‘Green’ value chain practices in the furniture industry

Published Date
November 1997, Vol.15(4):293–315, doi:10.1016/S0272-6963(97)00004-1

Author 

Robert B Handfield ^,a

Steve V Walton ^b

Lisa K Seegers ^c

Steven A Melnyk ^a

aDepartment of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, The Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1121, USA

bRoberto C. Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322-2710, USA

cPrice Waterhouse, Chicago, IL, USA

Received 10 May 1996. Accepted 6 December 1996. Available online 10 June 1998. 

Abstract

This paper draws on the results of interviews with five environmental managers in the furniture industry to develop a taxonomy of environmentally-friendly (‘green’) best practices within the operations management value chain. This taxonomy is then extended to develop a group of propositions concerning the role of management in promoting environmentally-friendly practices. The results suggest that in order to be successful, environmental management strategies must be integrated into all stages of the value chain, which includes all of the processes spanning product design, procurement, manufacturing and assembly, packaging, logistics, and distribution. While the potential for environmental performance improvement in all five of the companies is evident, all of them demonstrated ‘pockets’ of environmentally-friendly practices (EFP) in different areas of their respective value chain functions. The propositions and results emerging from the analysis also suggests that reacting to regulations is no longer sufficient. World-class EFP must anticipate and pre-empt changing environmental regulations and customer expectations, and proactively prepare products, processes and infrastructure for these changes without sacrificing competitive advantage.

Keywords

Environmental issues

Government regulation

Case study research

Empirical research

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  Corresponding author.

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