In order to address the increasing
stakeholder requirements for environmentally sustainable products and
processes, firms often need the participation of their supply chain partners.
Green supply chain management has emerged as a set of managerial practices that
integrate environmental issues into supply chain management. If implemented
successfully, green supply chain management can be a way to achieve competitive
advantage while enhancing the environmental sustainability of the firm. The
overall purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to the discussion on
green supply chain management practices from the perspective of their drivers
and performance implications.

The theoretical background arises from the
literature on competitive strategy, firm performance and green supply chain
management. The research questions are addressed by analysing firm-level data
from manufacturing, trading and logistics firms operating in Finland. The
empirical data comes from two consecutive Finland State of Logistics surveys in
2012 and 2014, combined with financial reporting data from external databases.
The data is analysed with multiple statistical methods.

First, the thesis contributes to the
discussion of the drivers of GSCM practices. To enhance the understanding of
the relationship between competitive strategy and GSCM practices, a conceptual
tool to describe generic competitive strategy approaches was developed. The
findings suggest that firms pursuing marketing differentiation are more likely
to be able to compete by having only small environmental effects and by
adopting a more advanced form of external green supply chain management, such
as a combination of strong environmental collaboration and the increased
environmental monitoring of suppliers. Furthermore, customer requirements for
environmental sustainability are found to be an important driver in the
implementation of internal GSCM practices. Firms can respond to this customer
pressure by passing environmental requirements on to their suppliers, either through
environmental collaboration or environmental monitoring.

Second, this thesis adds value to the
existing literature on the effects of green supply chain management practices
on firm performance. The thesis provides support for the idea that there is a
positive relationship between GSCM practices and firm performance and enhances
the understanding of how different types of GSCM practices are related to 1)
financial, 2) operational and 3) environmental performance in manufacturing and
logistics. The empirical results suggest that while internal GSCM practices
have the strongest effect on environmentalperformance, environmental
collaboration with customers seems to be the most effective way to improve
financial performance. In terms of operational performance, the findings were
more mixed, suggesting that the operational performance of firms is more likely
to be affected by firm characteristics than by the choices they make regarding
their environmental collaboration. This thesis is also one of the first attempts
to empirically analyse the relationship between GSCM practices and performance
among logistics service providers.

The findings also have managerial
relevance. Management, especially in manufacturing and logistics industries,
may benefit by gaining knowledge about which types of GSCM practice could
provide the largest benefits in terms of different performance dimensions. This
thesis also has implications for policy-makers and regulators regarding how to
promote environmentally friendly activities among 1) manufacturing; 2) trading;
and 3) logistics firms.