In recent years many firms from developed and developing countries have seriously started to initiate green supply chain management to achieve greater efficiency and reduce environmental impacts of their supply chains. To become greener, many firms have now realized the need to collaborate or integrate with their supply chain partners to implement environmental management. Such efforts are noted from the participation of more than 120 companies, including British Telecom Group, Vospre Thornycroft Group Plc, Kraft Foods, IKEA, Levi Strauss and Co., and others, in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative, where firms measure carbon emissions of their product life cycle and supply chains.
In the management literature, there is a paucity of knowledge about how firms may effectively coordinate environmental management across their supply chains, and most importantly, how firms can achieve desirable environmental performance throughout a supply chain without compromising their operational performance. Even though some recent studies indicate that environmental collaboration (collaboration with suppliers and customers in environmental management) could lead to both better operational and environmental performance, the effectiveness of such a concept is yet to be thoroughly proven and understood.
This research elevates the concept of environmental collaboration to a novel concept called Green Supply Chain Integration (GSCI), which is a more strategic and integrative approach to achieving green supply chain performance. The research plans to identify the effective practices of Green Supply Chain Integration that can simultaneously improve operational and environmental performance of firms from developing and developed countries (Hong Kong, China, Thailand and UK). It will reveal the complementary effects of various Green Supply Chain Integration practices and factors such as regulation, competitive priority, supply chain structure which may support or inhibit such efforts. This research is importance because most supply chains are globally fragmented and yet every firm needs to simultaneously achieve superior operational and environmental performance. It is a timely research because the needs to effectively coordinate environmental practices in a global supply chain have now been recognised but there is a lack of insights into how breakthrough in operational and environmental performance can be achieved.

Potential Impact:
The research helps firms in the UK, HK/China and Thailand to create and improve action plans for coordinating environmental management to achieving sustainable environmental and operational performance, leading to less pollution and adverse environmental impact and therefore improving the quality of life of the involved communities. To achieve this impact, the project website will continuously inform and update interested parties, including business managers and policy makers, with key findings of the research via Electronic news (e-news). Wider audience will be reached via regional and national newspapers. Next, several practitioner-friendly papers and industry benchmarking reports will be made available for downloading. These publications and benchmarking reports provide key findings of the research including best practices, lessons learnt, operating models, implementation key success factors and implementation frameworks. The research will publish a practitioner article at the CIPS's Supply Management Magazine. E-news will alert the availability of such publications. The website is open to any interested businesses to download the various papers and reports. Downloading frequency will be traced and reported to measure the extent of the dissemination. The proposed interview, survey and case study will be used to engage with businesses. Each survey respondent will receive a personalized industrial benchmarking report. Two case studies are planned to further explain the survey findings as well as allowing the investigators and case companies to co-develop practical frameworks and action plans to coordinate environmental management. Selected case companies will be asked to share the success and experience with other by giving keynote speeches at the industrial seminar. Relevant businesses, industrial associations, regulatory bodies, academic researchers and management consultants will be invited to participate in the one-day industrial seminars. Copies of policy and industrial benchmarking reports will be distributed to the relevant participants. The industrial seminar allows the investigators and invited case companies to explain the key findings and recommendations to the participants. A break-out discussion session during industrial seminar will allow participants to engage with each other, share best practices, and create opportunity for future collaboration. Management consultants will be able to translate the findings of this research into consultancy frameworks to benefit wider business communities. This research informs policy makers the effects of current environmental policies in encouraging firms from developed and developing countries to jointly reduce environmental impacts of their supply chain. Policy-focus papers based on the survey and case study findings produced by the PIs will be made available for downloading. The policy report provides scientifically rigour analyses to prove its effectiveness of the various ways environmental policies affecting buying firms in communicating, monitoring and collaborating with their suppliers. Relevant policy makers will be invited to participate in the industrial seminar. The purpose of such is to spur further debates and policy improvement. A break-out discussion session during industrial seminar will allow policy makers to discuss policy implications with the related industries. Policy makers from developed and developing countries may take the findings of the research as a basis for harmonizing relevant policies. The business and management research community will benefit from the novel theory of green supply chain integration (GSCI) developed by this research. The research will disseminate the findings of this research mainly through three major conferences - EurOMA, POMS, AOM and three journals - JOM, DSJ/IJOPM and AMJ.