Abstract
The dairy industry plays an important role in the agricultural economy of the European Union. Moreover, as a part of the agrifood sector, it is greatly exposed to the challenges of the Sustainable Development. In particular, the literature has recently put a strong emphasis on the need for improving environmental performance of such industry. One of the reasons regards the environmental impact of the logistics processes, especially the transportation of the products. Implementing innovative green supply chain management (GSCM) practices (i.e. the set of techniques used to increase environmental performance of the supply chains) might be a solution. Nevertheless, the practical adoption of GSCM practices is still far from widespread. In fact, the dairy supply chains are plagued by high risk and uncertainty, which often prevent managers to move towards sustainable solutions. The purpose of this research is to understand the main factors influencing the adoption of innovative GSCM practices within the dairy supply chains. In particular, given its relevance, the focus is on the introduction of new sustainable logistics models with the perspective of the entire supply chain. Accordingly, a multiple case studies research in multiple stages (producer, logistics operator, and supermarket) of Italian dairy supply chains has been performed. This allows the researchers to empirically explore the context and collect data from different actors of the supply chain. The findings support the identification of factors affecting the implementation of new sustainable logistics models in the dairy supply chain. They can be classified as KPIs (e.g. delivery and financial performance), technology and features of the logistic model (e.g. track and trace technologies, traveling stock) and exogenous factors (e.g. weather conditions). The factors are different from one stage to the other, due to dissimilar needs. The resulting framework supports companies operating in the dairy industry to implement innovative GSCM practice.