Application of Green Strategies and Competitive Advantage of Total Solution Logistics Service Providers in Mombasa, Kenya

Abstract

Green strategies have emerged as a key approach for logistics firms seeking to become environmentally sustainable and globally competitive. As a developing country, Kenya has to balance both its business operations and environmental performance. This study’s objective was to determine the connection between competitive advantage and adoption of green strategies by total solution logistics service providers in Mombasa, Kenya. A descriptive research design was adopted for this study which targeted a population of logistics firms operating in Mombasa County listed by Federation of East African Freight Forwarders Association, FEAFFA and Kenya International Freight and warehousing Association, KIFWA. A census survey on all the 63 listed total logistics service providers was carried out. The data was collected using questionnaires. The results obtained indicated that adoption of green strategies are at implementation stage and that most logistics firms were considering adoption. The study also established that the major apparent benefits of adopting green strategies are; reduction of environmental degradation, reduction of business costs and enhanced customer base. The study findings indicates that more established and sizeable firms were the most likely adopters of green strategies compared to their smaller counterparts. The most adopted green strategies were pollution prevention and clean technology whereas product stewardship and sustainability vision strategies were neglected. The study recommends that the management in logistics firms should focus and allocate more resources towards pollution prevention and clean technology strategies as these results in greater savings and thus higher firm performance. They should also strive at achieving sustainability as this will improve productivity in the logistics industry, environment performance and reduce waste to attain cost savings. Finally, the logistics firms should act fast on implementation of green strategies since there are prospective paybacks which may result in business growth and good publicity.