The result related to green supply chain practices with suppliers (upstream) is
consistent with the work of Carter and Carter (1998) on environmental purchasing.
They found that environmental purchasing, defined as the involvement of the
purchasing department in life-cycle analysis, design for disassembly, and design
for the environment (mainly all pollution prevention related activities), were
linked positively to vertical coordination, measured by the degree of partnership
with the suppliers in environment-related projects. As suggested by the Porter
Hypothesis and the natural-resource-based view of the firm, pollution prevention
carries value-adding properties in the form of lower cost (higher productivity) and
greater quality. In such a context, the linkage between environmental collaboration
with suppliers and pollution prevention adoption/implementation fuels an already
well-established relationship between supply chain management and operational
performance (Chen and Paulraj 2004, Chen et al. 2004).
Overall, however, the effects of joint environmental planning and cooperation
with major customers were weaker than with suppliers, although directionally
consistent. In fact, this is a disappointing result as other research found a positive
and significant relation between more general cooperation with customers (essentially related to logistical and operational aspects) and investments in pollution
prevention (Klassen and Vachon 2003). Hence, environment-specific collaboration
with customers is not as influential for the adoption and implementation of pollution
prevention in the focal plant.