Supply chain management and environmental technologies: the role of integration

As corporations attempt to move toward environmental sustainability, management must extend their efforts to improve environmental practices across their supply chain. To date, the literature characterising environmental management within the supply chain has been slowly building, but remains sparse. Moreover, investment by plants in environmental technologies cannot be made independently of other organisations in the supply chain. The linkage between supply chain characteristics, such as the degree of integration with primary suppliers and major customers, and the resources invested in different environmental technologies is assessed with plant-level survey data. The results indicate that resources were increasingly allocated toward pollution prevention when plants developed extensive strategic-level integration with suppliers, including such aspects as product development and knowledge sharing. However, these effects were not mirrored with customers. Instead, greater supply chain integration with customers was significantly related to pollution control. Collectively, these findings suggested that downstream supply chain members tend to favour prevention while simultaneously shifting the burden for control to upstream members.