The impact of cleaner production strategy on Sustainable supply chain performance

There is a paradigm shift occurring in organizations towards sustainable production through cleaner production strategies. This cleaner production concept has been proven to be cost-effective, result-oriented, environment-savvy and provides the organizations a cutting edge over their counterparts. However, there is a lack of awareness about cleaner production practices in Iraq while the current study analyzed one of the most important factories in Iraq for sugar production to understand the factors required for successful application of cleaner production strategy and the challenges to be expected. In this study, the researchers followed an exploratory research approach. For this study, a questionnaire was designed, validated and distributed randomly among 700 potential respondents working in various departments of the organization under study. Out of the total responses, 482 responses were considered and SEM-PLS analysis was conducted. The cleaner production strategies were applied through nine dimensions and the relationship between the performance of the factory and sustainable supply chain was found to be prominent. With a few limitations such as the choice of a single factory, weak relationship between the variables identified from hypothesis testing, the study is a first-of-its-kind in this domain, especially in dealing with sugar refineries. Based on the outcomes, policy recommendations were made to the decision makers and the government. It can be concluded that the application of modern technologies and effective resource management can help in achieving the goal of the study.