4.1. Data Collection
The next step of this research was the market analysis. The questionnaire was based on an in-depth analysis of the literature, interviews with experts, and a scientific discussion. It was then possible, while also referring to the formulated hypotheses and identified research areas, to develop the survey questions. The research covered aspects relating to the creation and assessment of green supply chains. This included questions on the use of different criteria for supplier selection (including sustainability), and the use of elements of sustainable development for the creation and evaluation of green supply chains. Answers to the questions were designed in such a way that the respondents answering used the 5 point Likert scale (1-never/very rarely, 5-very often/always).
The survey using a questionnaire was conducted throughout Poland, using the CATI method, in conjunction with an extensive questionnaire and the need to sacrifice more time to fill it in, that interviewers carried out over a three-month period. The research process made it possible to examine 549 organizations operating in Poland in the predefined sectors. The survey was directed at the food industry—conventional, food industry—organic, clothing apparel manufacturing, home appliance manufacturers, sales network of grocery and general merchandise retailer, sales network of home appliances, and sales network of retail-clothing. The number of surveys and queries were addressed to 1709 units, with a confidence level of 99% and a 2% error estimation. The questionnaire was completed by 481 companies, about 28% of those who received it, including 327 large companies (more than 100 employees) and 154 medium-sized companies (from 50 to 99 employees). Those who responded to the questionnaire were middle to senior management including, for example, a supply chain manager, a logistics manager, a head of logistics and supply chain, and a procurement and purchasing manager. The number of investigated objects stemmed from the assumptions of the correct statistical survey. Data collected from the survey were processed and analyzed to provide a basis for making considerations, analysis, drawing conclusions, and formulating recommendations.
4.2. Empirical Findings
The questionnaire included, in addition to questions about the company itself, i.e., its size, business profile, location, certificates held, etc., more than 50 questions about the understanding of the green or sustainable supply chain, the level of their implementation, the tools, and the methods used related to it. The results presented below show the most interesting compounds and the most important elements of the survey on sustainable and green supply chains.
The first analysis carried out was a comparison of the number of enterprises by role in the supply chain (manufacturer, provider, and retailer) and having environmental certificates (ISO 1400x, EMAS or other)—questions 6, 7 in
Appendix A. An investigation was carried out into medium-sized and large companies, separately. The results are presented in
Figure 5A,B, respectively. Approximately 24% of all 154 medium-sized companies and 93% of all 327 companies had a certificate. For medium-sized companies, the highest number of certificates were held by manufacturers, but the highest percentage of certificates were held by retailers (almost 40%). In large companies, both manufacturers and retailers were mostly certified (more than 93% in both groups). The higher the number of certificates in large companies, the higher the visibility and relevance of the tool as a competitive element. Secondly, it is easier for companies to prepare for the certification process and after that they often become a link in the global supply chain. The leader of the supply chain needs to have this type of solution.
Figure 6 presents the number of companies with certifications in comparison to how long they have been implementing the green supply chain/green logistics (environmental aspects), distinguishing between medium-sized and large companies—question 8 in
Appendix A. For medium-sized companies, it was observed that the number of certificates increased with the period of implementing the green supply chain in comparison to large companies where the number of certificates was similar for all periods of time. Among the large companies, even those that implemented environmental aspects in a short period of time—0–2 years—were mostly certified. Additionally, it is important to note that companies that declared that they had not introduced aspects of the green supply chain also had environmental certifications (10 among medium-sized companies, and 24 among large companies).
The answers to the two presented questions presented are related to hypothesis 1 posed by the authors. Environmental certificates are one of the environmental tools used in the supply chain. Their possession is one of the positive elements of creating a green supply chain. The growing number of certificates and its relationship with the implementation of the green chain is undeniable.
A subsequent analysis showed the percentage of companies that analyze the environmental impact of their operations in comparison to companies implementing or planning to implement green and sustainable supply chains (
Figure 7A,B)—questions 9, 10 in
Appendix A. Comparing the results from the charts, we could see that once again, large companies were more environmentally conscious; more than 80% of companies analyzed the environmental impact of their operations when compared to medium-sized companies it was between 30–50%. What is interesting, however, that when comparing the companies that are implementing or are about to implement green and sustainable supply chains, the differences were not considerable, especially for large companies (
Figure 7B). For medium-sized companies, the percentage was even higher for companies that only intended to implement a sustainable supply chain than those that were already implementing it.
The next comparison related to three questions about assessing the efficiency of the supply chain, distinguishing between companies that were implementing or planning to implement green and/or a sustainable supply chain. The respondents answered to the questions listed 1A–1D, 2, 3 in
Appendix A.
Figure 8A,B show the semantic dissimilarities in the efficiency assessment and supply chain performance (questions 1A–1D, 2, 3
Appendix A) in comparison to companies implementing or planning to implement (with a distinction by medium-sized and large enterprises), respectively:
From the presented graphs, one can see that much more often (but not so often) were environmental aspects taken into account by managers of large companies. Moreover, it was also evident that the differences between companies which implemented or intended to implement a green supply chain and sustainable supply chain were not big at all.
Figure 8A shows the semantic differential in companies implementing or planning to implement a green supply chain, where one can observe that the biggest differences for middle-sized companies were found in questions 1B to 1D. In assessing the efficiency of the supply chain, environmental aspects were taken into account by companies: only in selected areas (1B), only in selected units (1C), and only to evaluate selected processes (1D). Similarly, for large companies, the biggest differences were for questions 1A, 1B, 1D, and 3. What is important is that companies that declare that they are implementing environmental aspects are doing it more often only in selected units and only to evaluate selected processes. A similar conclusion can be drawn when looking at 1B and 1C, where companies who intended to implement a green supply chain more often took into account environmental aspects. It was also significant that managers of large companies were more likely to consider environmental aspects of the whole chain or area level (1A and 1B) than managers of medium-sized enterprises. Dissimilarities in responses to question 2 on whether dedicated environmental management instruments were used to assess the efficiency and performance of the supply chain were not so distinct. For question 3—on whether scientific assessment methods (including ecological efficiency, management methods, modern concepts) were used to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the supply chain—it was found that greater differences occurred in large companies. Similar conclusions were drawn from
Figure 8B on the semantic differential in companies implementing or planning to implement a sustainable supply chain. The biggest differences were seen in the answers to questions from 1A to 1C between companies that implemented or intended to implement a sustainable supply chain; however, the differences were still not very big. As in
Figure 8A, there were dissimilarities in the responses from medium-sized and large company managers, the largest for questions 1A to 1C, 2, and 3.
To confirm the differences presented by semantic dissimilarities in the efficiency assessment and supply chain performance, an independent analysis was carried out to statistically confirm whether there were any differences to the answers to the questions by the managers of companies that implemented or intended to implement a green supply chain and a sustainable supply chain. By using independent analysis, based on the hypothesis that there were no dependencies between the tested variables and, furthermore, there were no significant dissimilarities between the quantities compared. To show these dependencies the Chi-squared test was applied.
Null hypothesis
H0 was that there were no differences in the efficiency assessment and supply chain performance (questions 1A–1D, 2, 3) in comparison to companies that implemented or intended to implement a green supply chain and a sustainable supply chain (with a distinction between medium-sized and large companies). All calculations were done in Statistica 10.0 software (Statsoft, Cracow, Poland), and the results are shown in
Table 1.
Noticing the values from the
p-value column from
Table 2, it can be seen that the hypothesis
H0 was rejected. This means that the companies that implemented or intended to implement a green supply chain and a sustainable supply chain had different assessments of the efficiency and supply chain performance.
In addition, to estimate the strength of this relationship, the V-Cramer coefficient was used. When the value of this coefficient was less than 0.3 it meant that there was a weak relation between the analyzed characteristics. A value between 0.3 and 0.5 meant that there was a moderate relationship, and more than 0.5 meant that there was a strong relationship between these characteristics. From
Table 2, one can observe that the V-Cramer coefficient indicates a moderate relation. From this, it can be observed that the largest value of this coefficient was in companies that implemented or intended to implement green logistics for large companies. The presented results of the statistical analysis confirmed the earlier results shown in the graphs that there were differences between those who had already applied the green supply chain and sustainable supply chain principle, and those who intended to use it, but these differences were not very large.
Another analysis (Analysis of variance—ANOVA) was used to examine the significance of differences between entrepreneurs who had implemented and not implemented the green supply chain. Therefore, we used Fisher’s law where the ratio of the squares of variances between groups to the squares of variances inside groups was determined according to a certain distribution (Fisher-Snedecor distribution) and it was possible to assess the probability of occurrence of certain F values.
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine if there were differences between implementing or non-implementing the green supply chain in the context of the questions/criterions 4 and 5 (
Appendix A).
The analysis was done by dividing the company into three groups: (1) Manufacturers, (2) Providers, and (3) Retailers with a distinction of medium-sized and large enterprises –
Table 3. For criterion 1, the difference between the middle-sized and large companies was significant; in all groups of large companies, there was a difference between companies that declared the implementation or not of a green supply chain regarding taking environmental aspects into account when selecting suppliers/partners (the biggest spread between
F0 from ANOVA than from Snedecor distribution with small
p-value at the same time – the bold values in
Table 3). The difference was significant for medium-sized companies only for retailers – the bold values in
Table 3. However, for criterion 2, when the “green” image was taken into account when selecting a supplier/partner, the difference was with the group of providers from large companies. This means that although entrepreneurs had declared the implementation of a green supply chain, in practice they did not choose suppliers in terms of environmental aspects nor take into account the “green” image.
Summing up the previous results, one can conclude that larger companies had a greater environmental awareness. They mostly had environmental certificates, but they also more often implemented green principles or a sustainable supply chain e.g., a selection of suppliers for environmental aspects. However, research has shown that there were no clear differences between companies that implemented or intended to implement a green or sustainable supply chain. This means that although entrepreneurs declared that they would implement a green supply chain, in practice, they did not pay much more attention to environmental aspects than companies which only just declared the implementation of green chain rules, analyzing in particular the results of the responses of the managers of middle-sized companies, i.e., semantic dissimilarities (
Figure 7A,B).
One more important analysis of the survey results was related to the individual performance measurement (questions 11, 12—
Appendix A). The results are based on
Table 4. It follows that these indicators are known and used as they appear to be the least developed from the balanced scorecard, and most often KPIs (Key Performance Index).
This was also investigated in companies that indicated that they implemented or used performance indicators in terms of the nature of their activity and in relation to the size of the enterprise, and which factors and which measures were most commonly used (
Table 5).
From the interpretation of the data contained in
Table 5, it can be indicated that hypothesis 2a posed by the authors were verified negatively. Irrespective of the sector, not large, but medium-sized organizations (employing from 50 to 99 employees), most often used environmentally friendly instruments and methods to assess their activities. Although it should be also noted that large organizations which had from 500 to 999 employees were interested in these types of solutions to a large extent. This means that the implementation of modern measurement methods generally did not depend on the size of the organization measured by the number of the employees employed. Hypothesis 2b was also positively verified. The type of organization and the sector in which it operates was not as important in the implementation of environmentally-friendly evaluation tools and the functioning of the supply chain.
In the context of organization division due to the number of employees into medium (those employing up to 99 people) and other (over 100), the results relating to the role they play in creating the green supply chain clearly indicated that large organizations were more often innovators and initiators and leaders (
Table 6). On the other hand, middle size organizations tended to continue and adapt solutions that were often passed on by chain leaders. At the same time, organizations that implemented green management tools were more often an adapter and continuator than a leader, or not involved in the implementation of pro-environmental tools. Most organizations that had declared having or implementing pro-environmental tools were somehow involved in the implementation of the green supply chain. Most often, organizations are an imitator, adapter or continuator. In this case, the represented sector as not so important. The connection with the implemented environmental measurement tools had positive relationships.
In the context of the classical division of organizations into the middle, that is, those employing up to 249 people and large ones over 250, the results allowed us to draw conclusions indicating that there were more initiators and imitators in the medium-sized group. Furthermore, innovators also constituted a much larger group than in the case of large organizations. This may mean that the size of an organization affects the role that organizations play in creating a green supply chain, but not very large organizations are always the initiators of change. The results presented in
Table 6 allow us to verify Hypothesis 3 positively.