Green Supply Chain Management Strategies and Environmental Performance of Brewing Firms in Kenya

Abstract

This research had two objectives: first, to determine the green supply chain management strategies commonly used by Kenya brewing firms and secondly to determine the relationship between green supply chain management strategies and environmental performance of Kenya brewing firms. The methodology involved a research design that used quantitative and qualitative data based on descriptive survey. The population covered in the research consisted of 41 registered Kenya brewing firms as registered by the Kenya revenue authority, 2015. This study established that the benefits experienced by the firms that implemented GSCM were that there was improvement in information systems; the use of recyclable materials was well promoted; firms experienced savings on costs due to effective utilization of available productive resources. GSCM also did much in helping with reduction of the environmental impact of business processes (Jlopleh, 2012). Various green supply chain management strategies of Kenya brewing firms have been discussed which include compliance based strategies, risk based strategies, innovative based strategies, closed loop strategies and lean based strategies. Although various environmental performance measures tools were identified, the research choose to use measures of conformance with management system standards which concentrates on areas such as environmental performance index (EPI), measure of sustainability and measure of business value from environmental performance (GEMI, 1998). There were some limitations identified, as by further investigation it lead to some conclusion that there is little research knowledge and information published concerning the relationship between GSCM strategies and environmental performance of Kenya brewing firms. Research is also lacking on areas of GSCM strategies and environmental performance of second generation brew which involve freelance and entrepreneurs businesses, so more needs to be done on this area.