Sustainability and green supply chain awareness in Nigerian organizations

Abstract

The concept of organizational growth has experienced a paradigm shift from the sole objective of profit maximization to the overall notion of social welfare. Consequently, organizations strategies, policies, and operations now include environmental considerations. All these considerations come under the umbrella of sustainability. The objective of this chapter is to analyze factors that determine the attitude of Nigerian organizations towards sustainability in terms of its Advantages and disadvantages. The author collected primary and secondary data, and carried out quantitative as well as qualitative analysis of these data. The instrument used for primary data collection was a survey questionnaire that consisted of 24 items that measured the Advantages of sustainability and 13 items that measured the challenges of sustainability. The web link for the survey instrument was distributed to Nigerian contacts on social media platforms (email, Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn). The research findings revealed two key factors for the Advantages of sustainability: (1) increased operational and social productivity, and (2) increased adherence to environmental standards. Two key factors for the disadvantages to sustainability were also revealed: (1) increased risk of management failure, and (2) increased regulatory and compliance costs. Future studies may expand on the findings of the current study to identify additional factors and diverse perspectives that may be found for other countries. Based on the research findings, it is recommended that organizations and governments focus their sustainability initiatives on the fulfillment of two broad goal categories that will enable them to achieve most of the desirable advantages of sustainability. These goals are: (1) increasing operational and social productivity, and (2) increasing adherence to environmental standards. The disadvantages associated with the adoption of sustainability initiatives can be managed by developing risk management plans that mitigates against risks associated with increased management failure and potential increase in sustainability-related regulatory and compliance costs. The major limitation of the study is the difficulty of generalizing the research findings globally given the fact that the focus country, Nigeria, is a developing country with an economy and circumstances that are not typical of most other countries in the world. However, the findings can be of benefit to other developing countries in Africa that share similarities with Nigeria. Other limitations are the limited study sample size, the survey time-frame and financial constraints.