| dc.description.abstract | In recent years, poultry production in Zimbabwe has been on the increase. This increase has been
accompanied by structural changes within the sector, giving rise to environmental concerns. It is
imperative for the poultry value chain in Zimbabwe to step up its environmental proactivity
practices in order to manage environmental concerns that arise from its expanding operations. With
this in mind, the main objective of this study was to find out the environmental proactivity
strategies that the poultry value chain companies are currently using to manage their environmental
impacts and to find out the variables that affect the selection of those strategies. In order to perform
the study, a questionnaire was distributed to 54 companies in the poultry value chain throughout
Zimbabwe. The companies were grouped into four categories which are the commercial farms,
stock feed manufacturers, service providers and lastly the processing companies. The first part of
the questionnaire comprised of questions that sought to find out the factors that contribute to the
adoption of the proactivity strategy used by the company. The second part of the questionnaire
comprised a matrix of environmental practices compiled from literature that would then be used to
classify each company to an environmental proactivity strategy. Descriptive and statistical analyses
were employed in order to analyse the data. Based on literature, environmental proactivity exists on
a continuum, with the reactive strategy at the lower end, the prevention strategy in the middle and
environmental leadership at the top of the continuum. The study found that 18% of the firms in the
poultry industry are using the reactive strategy whilst 70.3% are using the prevention strategy. Only
11% of the companies have the environmental leadership strategy. There is no statistically
significant difference in the level of proactivity exhibited across the business type categories.
However, based on the descriptive statistics, processors show a higher level of environmental
proactivity. One factor that statistically significantly contributes towards environmental proactivity
is the amount of focus placed on the management of certain environmental aspects. The presence of
other operational systems and the presence of a sufficient environmental budget also influence the
adoption of a particular proactivity strategy. The most influential stakeholders in pushing for
environmental action in the poultry industry are the regulatory stakeholders and shareholder. These
can push for better environmental practices within the industry. Players in the industry must be
educated that environmental management is a step towards sustainable development. Consumers
should be educated on their environmental rights so that they can be influential stakeholders in
lobbying for improved environmental management. Further research should be done to quantify
and classify the true impact of the poultry value chain operations on the environmen | en_US |
