Barriers to green supply chain management in Indian mining industries: a graph theoretic approach Kamalakanta Muduli a , Kannan Govindan b, c, * , Akhilesh Barve a , Yong Geng c a Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India b Department of Business and Economics, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, Odense, Denmark c Key Laboratory of Pollution Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,110016 Shenyang, China article info Article history: Received 23 May 2012 Received in revised form 17 October 2012 Accepted 23 October 2012 Available online 3 November 2012 Keywords: GSCM GTMA Permanent Diagraph Barriers to GSCM implementation abstract A country’s mining industry, despite its significant contributions to the country’s economic growth, generally has a very poor public image because it is considered as a major environmental polluter. To acquire an improved social image, as well as to comply with government regulations, mining industries are increasingly implementing environmental management systems (EMS), cleaner production (CP), and adopting green supply chain management (GSCM) practices. GSCM focuses on a reduction of the adverse impacts of supply chain activities as well as a minimization of energy and material usage. This study focuses on the mining industry as a case study by which we will identify factors and sub-factors hindering GSCM implementation. A graph theoretic and matrix approach (GTMA) has been used to quantify the adverse impact of these barriers on GSCM implementation. An assessment of the inhibiting strength of the barriers will help decision makers rank them and decide a course of action that will make an optimum utilization of available resources during times of resource scarcity. Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction Rapid worldwide industrialization requires an increase in supply chain activities. However, such activities are major factors in the depletion of natural resources, climatic problems, waste generation, harmful emission of gases, and disruptions in the ecosystem. To counter environmental deterioration, green supply chain manage- ment integrates environmental management principles with supply chain activities in order to either improve the environment or to preserve it so no further depletion is allowed. Therefore, green supply chain management is an important and emerging 21st century trend among all industrial activities, including mining. Organizations facing competitive regulatory and community pres- sures address these serious environmental issues by greening their supply chains, eliminating or minimizing waste in all forms including energy emissions, chemical, hazardous, and solid waste along the supply chain (Hervani et al., 2005). Material movement goes through several phases in the life cycle of any product, and each phase e such as the extraction of raw material, manufacturing, use and reuse, recycling and disposal e contributes significantly to the supply chain’s ecological burden. To minimize the adverse envi- ronmental impact of their supply chains, various organizations adopt numerous environmental management strategies such as ISO 14001 certification, cleaner production, environmental management system, and life cycle analysis. In early environmental management frameworks, operating managers were involved only at arm’s length. Separate organizational units had responsi- bility for ensuring environmental excellence in product develop- ment, process design, operations, logistics, marketing, regulatory compliance, and waste management (Toke et al., 2010). On the other hand, GSCM has been evolved as a more systematic and integrated approach that has the capability to develop winewin strategies for organizations, allowing them to achieve their profit and market share objectives along with increased ecological efficiency (Van Hock and Erasmus, 2000). Contrary to the concepts of traditional environmental management, GSCM accepts full responsibility of any firm towards its product, starting from raw material acquisition up to final use and disposal of products after end of life (Hart, 1995). The green craze exists in almost all modern sectors, and there is no exception for the mining sector. Mining activities mainly consist of extraction, processing, and transportation of minerals from mining sites to market place. Indiscriminate and unplanned mining activities over the years have significantly contributed to environmental degradation. Low investment capacity, the use of traditional technologies, the poor * Corresponding author. Department of Business and Economics, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, Odense, Denmark. Tel.: þ45 65503188. E-mail address: gov@sam.sdu.dk (K. Govindan). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.10.030 Journal of Cleaner Production 47 (2013) 335e344