Contribution of Design for Environment as a Green Supply Chain Practice - A Pilot Empirical Study of the Indian Automobile Manufacturing Sector

ABSTRACT This paper tests empirically through a pilot study of the Indian Automobile Manufacturing Sector, the contribution of the variables constituting the construct Design for the Environment (DfE) in Green Supply Chain Practices. Also the paper establishes the reliability of the questionnaire instrument developed previously for measuring the construct Design for the Environment and also for measuring the eight variables that constitute the construct Design for the Environment. Further the paper establishes the inter-item correlation among these eight variables. Finally this paper conducts Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to arrive at two factors (linear combination of variables constituting the construct Design for the Environment) to aid in measuring the construct Design for the Environment. Five research questions that were framed pertaining to this research were answered. Keywords: Automobile, CFA, Design for the Environment, Green Supply Chain Practice, Indian, Manufacturing Sector, Pilot Study.