Ranking of Barriers to Green Manufacturing Implementation in SMEs Using Best-Worst Method

Abstract

Nature has provided us with limited resources on the earth, but the requirement is unlimited, one is fulfilled another will crop up. Modern manufacturing scenario and rough consumption of natural resources create huge challenges in front of human beings in the form of environmental degradation and wastage of material. The purpose of this study is to identify the barriers to green manufacturing (GM) from selected Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Delhi and NCR region and rank them as per their priority. An extensive literature review together with expert's opinion was done to identify the GM barriers. A newly developed approach known as Best-Worst method (BWM) was adopted for the ranking of identified GM barriers. This study identifies 21 barriers to GM implementation which are arranged into 5 main barriers for well understanding. Further, the findings of this study show that, "Lack of new technology facilities and processes", "Lack of experts related to new technology", "Lack of expertise training programs", "High initial capital cost to implement GM" and "Weak Legislation" are top-five barriers that lead to difficulties in GM implementation in SMEs while least important observed barrier is "Not enough and understandable information". Therefore this study provides knowledge about the green manufacturing barriers and their ranking most severe to less severe that is most important to less important and this study also provides a systematic way to sort out the barriers in GM implementation according to their priority. In the end, the study provides conclusions and some implication of the study as well as the scope for future research.