Green Supply Chain Management Practices in the Kenyan Mobile Telecommunication Industry

Abstract

Kenya boasts of the most vibrant mobile telecommunication industry in the region that rakes in billions of profits.Stiff competition exists between them in that it seems the society tends to ignore their green policy and concentrate on their price wars. For the companies to perform optimally they have to adopt the green supply chain practices to enhance proper integration with the environment. The study sought to investigate the Green Supply Management practices, the drivers and challenges of implementing it in the mobile telecommunication industry in Kenya. In order to achieve the set objectives of the study, a survey was done on the four mobile telecommunication companies in Kenya. The study findings showed that most firms were found to have adopted green supply chain management practices. Company’s environmental vision and mission application was found to be the most practice used by telecommunication firms in Kenya followed design for environment practices in product development implementation. ISO 14001 certification for suppliers was found to be the least adopted green supply chain management practice. The study therefore recommends for green supply chain to be fully implemented by all most mobile telecommunication firms in Kenya. They need to re-evaluate their green practice. Benchmarking should be used to borrow best practices on these. Moreover more funds should be sourced since it was established that cost was the major green supply chain management driver that affected telecommunication firms in Kenya. The green supply chain concept should be addressed with great concern and all challenges that hinder full implementation removed. These challenges include high investment costs and lack of qualified personnel.