Research On Driving Mechanism And Strength Evaluation Method For Greening Supply Chain

In the middle and late of the20th century, the over-consumption of resources and theenvironmental pollution problems are becoming more and more serious under the rapiddevelopment of the world economy. Resources and environment will be the biggestchallenge facing human beings in the21st century. The rising contradiction among economicgrowth, resources, environment and global frequent extreme weather disasters force humanbeings to deeply reflect the traditional development mode of the industrial age, which is atthe cost of over-consumption of resources, and destruction of ecological balance. It is underthis circumstance that the strategy of sustainable development that meets the needs of thepresent without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs isbecoming common consensus among countries in the world. And then the global “GreeningWave” and “Greening Revolution” swept over the world.“Greening” constantly penetratedinto all aspects of economic and social life. Under the double dilemma of resources andenvironment in the21st century, the extensive growth mode mainly characterized as “threehighs and one low”(high inputs, high consumption, high pollution, and low efficiency) hascome to the end. Accelerating the change in the pattern of economic growth and promotingthe “greening” of supply chain become extremely urgent, especially for the manufacturingindustry which is closely connected to resources and environment.Greening supply chain, is a continuously optimizing process, which targeted atsustainable development and based on circular economy principle, inside the systemcomposed of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, recyclers, consumers,environment, regulation and culture, a comprehensive consideration of the environmentalinfluences and resources efficiency is taken in the whole process from the development ofresources to the consumption of products, which including acquisition, processing, packing,storage, transportation, sale, use, scrap processing and recycling, through the right control of logistics, cash flow, information flow, and knowledge flow to achieve less negativeinfluences to environment, higher utilization efficiency of resources and better overallperformance in the life cycle of products. Greening supply chain management is a kind ofmodern management mode, which strengthens resources and environment awareness in thesupply chain, strengthens cooperation among upstream and downstream enterprises andcommunication among departments inside the enterprise, a comprehensive consideration ofresources efficiency and environment benefits is taken in the whole process from productdesign, material selection, manufacturing, sales and recovery, through planning, organizing,leading, coordinating and controlling of logistics, information flow, fund flow andknowledge flow among participation bodies in the whole supply chain to improve bothenvironmental and economic performance in the enterprise, consequently to achievesustainable development in the enterprise and its supply chain.In order to achieve “Greening” sustainable development goal in our country evenaround the world and provide advance management advice to greening supply chain, thethesis studied the driving mechanism and strength evaluation method for greening supplychain from the perspective of decision analysis. The realistic background of greening supplychain is not only the foundation of the studied issues but also the important problem faced byall organizations and even entire human beings in the current age. So, the thesiscomprehensively analyzed the realistic background of greening supply chain and reachedsome valuable conclusions: In the aspect of resources utilization, for the amount of resources,the total is rich while per capita is poor, the consumption of industrial resources is hugewhile the efficiency is low, the consumption of fresh water is huge while the utilizationefficiency is low as well as the waste is serious, the forest resources is poor while the wasteis amazing, land resources is on shortage while the quality is low. In the aspect of energyutilization, energy consumption and waste is amazing while energy efficiency is low andwastage is serious, the energy consumption structure is unreasonable, the energy securityproblem created by the serious shortage of energy reserves is very outstanding. In the aspectof the environmental problems, pollution amount is increasing, environmental pollution incidents and cumulative harmful consequences intensively outbreak, fresh water resourcespollution situation continues to deteriorate, marine pollution situation is not optimistic,extreme weather and climate events hasten stronger, the loss of all kinds of natural disastersincreased year by year, cultivated land decreased year by year, land desertificationphenomenon, grassland degradation and reduction of biodiversity are serious. The analysisresult shows that greening supply chain is becoming extremely urgent from whatever therespective of resource or environment, and market or society.Although greening supply chain plays extremely important positive role in both solvingresources shortage and environmental pollution problems and promoting the social value andlong-term interests of supply chain enterprises, most of them still implement the traditionalsupply chain management model to obtain short-term interests. The primary premise toachieve the goal is that the supply chain enterprises actively participate in “greening”construction. Drawing on the Stakeholder Theory, from both endogenous and exogenousperspective, the driving elements for greening supply chain were comprehensively andsystematically identified and classified into endogenous driving elements includingmanagers, shareholders, upstream and downstream enterprises, and internal employees andexogenous driving elements including consumers, competitors, social public, andgovernment agencies. From which the endogenous and exogenous driving mechanism wereexpounded correspondingly, and then the driving mechanism model functionalized by bothendogenous and exogenous driving elements for greening supply chain was constructed,from which the joint driving mechanism was expounded. It is necessary to mention that thedriving mechanism raised by this thesis, on one hand, is the generalization andsummarization of the existing greening supply chain management research results in thetheoretical level, on the other hand, is the fusion and development of the existing researchresults from the perspective of driving for greening supply chain.Although some researches in the perspective of performance evaluation for greeningsupply chain have been carried out at home and abroad and some scholars also put forwardsome performance evaluation index system and evaluation methods, the relevant research reports of the construction of evaluation index system from the driving strength perspectiveand the scientific selection of the key indexes have not been found. The above two questionsare not only related to whether or not the driving strength evaluation index system forgreening supply chain can be constructed scientifically but also affect the reasonableselection of the driving strength evaluation model or evaluation method. Therefore, the thesisidentified and classified the driving strength evaluation indexes for greening supply chaininto eight levels, which are managers (A), shareholders (B), upstream and downstreamenterprises (C), internal employees (D), consumers (E), competitors (F), social public (G)and government agencies (H), and then the selection method from which the key indexes canbe identified from multiple driving evaluation indexes with complicated correlation effect ofrelationship based on the theory of complex network DEMATEL method, at last two groupsof consulting experts were invited to rank and select key evaluation indexes by using theproposed selection method, from which the intermediate product quality (C5), greeningmanagement system (A7), greening incentives (H5), greening activities support (A3),product environmental protection degree (H3), intermediate product cost (C6), greeningbudget (A4) and three wastes discharge quantity (A11) were selected as key indexes to forconstruct the evaluation index system for greening supply chain. Finally, through the furtherstudy of Table5.3, some valuable clues can be gotten:1.The point of strength of greenincentive policies is managers instead of shareholders.2.The subsidies to the green productswill achieve more with less for greening supply chain.3.The incentive emphasis of greenpreferential policies is the core enterprise in the supply chain.4.In order to develop thegovernment agencies’ function for greening supply chain sufficiently, the mandatory drivingand incentive driving must be emphasized equally, neither of them shall be neglected.Although the research results in the aspect of performance evaluation for greeningsupply chain are not rare, the relevant results in the aspect of the driving strength evaluationfor greening supply chain have not been found. In addition, the latest research results showthat the decision makers usually don’t have the ability to make decision inference in accurateways. Four reasons for that:1. People have limited attention or resources processing capacity. 2. All members do not have exactly the same knowledge for the same problem in the group.3. Decision is usually made under the condition of time pressure or lack of the knowledge orinformation.4. Some properties implying social or environmental impact can not bemonetized. For these reasons, through crossing multiple attribute decision making method,group decision method, and uncertain decision method, the thesis put forward a constructionprinciple which can be used to comprehensively evaluate the driving strength for greeningsupply chain. Taking full consideration of limited decision inference ability, the thesis putforward a comprehensive evaluation method of the driving strength for greening supplychain based on the DEA model without input, which has been applied in a numericalsimulation case and then the feasibility was verified. At last, the management advices fromthe perspective of government were provided to enhance the driving strength for greeningsupply chain. This thesis takes the advantage of DEA model’s objectivity evaluation withoutbeing given attribute weights to overcome defects of scientific difference of the decisionresult due to unreasonable attribute weight by using analytic hierarchy process and networkanalysis method.The study of the driving mechanism and strength evaluation method for greeningsupply chain from the perspective of decision analysis, is not only a theoretical but alsomethodological innovation. The innovations in concrete can be summarized as follows.1. The concept of greening supply chain and greening supply chain management arere-defined, from which the characteristics of dynamic, stage, procedure and degree aredescribed. Moreover, the concept of driving mechanism and driving strength for greeningsupply chain are put forward and defined for the first time.2. Drawing on the Stakeholder Theory, from both endogenous and exogenousperspectives, the driving elements for greening supply chain are identified and classified intoendogenous and exogenous driving elements. From which the endogenous and exogenousdriving mechanism were expounded correspondingly, and then the joint driving mechanismwas expounded, which functionalized by both endogenous and exogenous driving elements,from which the driving mechanism model for greening supply chain was constructed. 3. Based on the subjective knowledge and experience of decision-making experts, thequantitative analysis method——DEMATEL method was used to scientifically identify8key indexes from41indexes in8levels, from which the evaluation index system forgreening supply chain was constructed.4. The DEA model without input was used to evaluate the driving strength for greeningsupply chain, from which the advance management advices for greening supply chain can beprovided.