Green management of logistics enterprises and its sustainable performance in Korea

Abstract

Sustainability is a major subject of interest in the field of business and environmental management. Many previous studies have emphasized the trade-off between economic activities and their negative effects on the environment. Moreover, previous studies have focused principally on manufacturing enterprises; however, only a few studies conducted thus far have concerned themselves with the logistics sector. This study fills these gaps by testing the causal relationship between proactive green management and the sustainable performance of logistics enterprises in Korea. Additionally, as compared with previous literature that discusses the partial relationship between environmental variables and firm performance, this study synthesizes the factors of green awareness and green strategy that may affect green logistics management, based on a total systematic structural equation model (SEM). SEM has advantages in examining the causal relationship between green logistics practice and business performance. Our results demonstrate the positive impact of green awareness and green logistics practice on logistics performance, whereas the influence of green strategy on logistics performance is apparently not significant. Key words: Green logistics management, green awareness, business performance, structural equation modeling (SEM), Korean transport enterprises.