STUDY OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORGANIZATION’S CHARACTERISTICS AND BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENT THE SUSTAINABLE LOGISTICS PRACTICES -AN EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM INDIAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

Surge in industrial activities has led to increase of GHG levels in the atmosphere which is continuously resulting into heating the earth and creating global warming and climate change. Currently, India is the third-largest emitter of CO2 in the world. The automobile sector is the second-largest contributor to the CO2 emission from fossil fuel after the power sector in India. There is pressure from various stakeholders to integrate sustainability with organizations' operations in order to deal with climate change. The present study attempts to study barriers in implementing sustainable practices based on the firm's characteristics in automobile industry using one-way ANOVA and Welch & Brown-Forsyth statistics. The paper also examines the impact of these practices on organization's performance (environment, economic and operation) using multiple regression analysis. Structured questionnaire was used to conduct empirical survey and collecting responses using convenience sampling method from various companies operating in passenger vehicle and its component manufacturing companies. The study suggests that barriers in implementing sustainable logistics practices differs significantly among different characteristics of the automobile organization. It was also observed that sustainable logistics practices have positive impact on organization performances. However, characteristics of the organizations also play very important role on these performances