The adoption of operational environmental sustainability approaches in the Thai manufacturing sector

Evidence suggests that manufacturing companies have tried to address the current environmental challenges derived from their operations by implementing various operational environmental sustainability approaches, including green manufacturing (GM), cleaner production (CP), green lean (GL), green supply chain management (GSCM), reverse logistics (RLs) and circular economy (CE). However, although their adoption is well documented in developed nations and few other countries, very little has been done to understand such phenomenon in a rapid developing country such as Thailand. This paper aims at filling this gap by providing light into some fundamental issues regarding the implementation of these approaches in the manufacturing sector of Thailand. A survey-based exploratory research was carried out based on 287 Thai manufacturing companies. The data was analysed using a combination of descriptive and inferential statics. The study revealed that a large amount of investment capacity, and proper training & knowledge are needed to fully implement the studied operational approaches. This resulted in some of the weakest elements of Thai manufacturing firms and hence the main barriers to their implementation. The study also showed that Thai manufacturing firms consider the impact on the environment and benefits from adopting these operational approaches as company’s policy and own initiative, environmental awareness, and cost saving from conservation of energy as the main reasons for adopting the studied operational approaches. Finally, the findings also indicate that Thai manufacturing firms tend to implement them because of internal factors and that they lack of motivation from external factors and involvement from other stakeholders. The paper extends the current limited knowledge on the deployment of operational environmental sustainability approaches in Asia, and its results can be beneficial for organisations that aim at effectively adopting them to improve their operation’s sustainability