GREEN MANUFACTURING PRACTICES IN SMES OF INDIA -A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

Increasing concern about the environment has forced industry to innovate and reduce its environmental impact. Green Manufacturing (GM) is the most emerging sustainable manufacturing practice that has the capability to solve the most of issues that the Indian industry faces now. GM covers all aspect to reduce the environmental impact by optimum use of available resources and reduction of waste. Due to various reasons, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) may have been left out of the regulatory and social pressures. The time has come where ignoring environmental impacts of SMEs is no longer viable. Small and medium sized firms are essential to all economies but also have a significant negative impact on the environment. Their collective footprint equates to the major contribution of industrial pollution yet SMEs are not convinced of the necessity for behaviour change. SMEs are often slow to adapt to the changes and are still moving towards better environmental practices. Lots of literatures are available on GM dealing with numerous aspects. This paper is an attempt to systematically review the available literatures and put it in a format which can be easily comprehended. That review paper includes an effort of analysing around 90 papers from various reputed journal spread over last 22 years related the green practices problems corresponding to SMEs.