The aim of current study was to investigate the association of environmental management practices with the performance of plastic firms in UK. In order to fulfil this aim, the mixed method study has been conducted, which relied on both quantitative and qualitative approach. The questionnaire was used as a source of quantitative data collection, whereas, the qualitative data was obtained through interviews. The data was obtained from employees and managerial staff members of Amtek Plastics UK. The sample size of survey was 111 and it was 5 for interviews. The results of both quantitative and qualitative analysis has suggested that plastic firms of UK are readily engaged in adoption of environmental management practices and it is contributing to improve their performance. The results are in line with the prior studies and it has suggested implications for theory and practice. Along with this, there are some limitations which can be pursued by future researchers.

Chapter 1- Introduction

1.1 Background:

Recently, the notion of environmental management has become an important strategic concern for the businessesworldwide. It has been provided by the researchers that among reputational factors, environmental attitudes of the plastic firms are considered as an important factor for shaping public perceptions of the companies(Corbett and Cutler, 2000; Gupta, 1995). While operating in drastically changing environment, plastic firms need to follow regulations laid by Government authorities by considering environmental management practices (Claver, López, Molina and Tarí, 2007). Environmental management practices are the way of protectingthe environment from the organizational activities which is carried out by setting objectives, measuring targets and evaluating the operations of organization (Hofer, Cantor and Dai, 2012; Klassen and McLaughlin, 1996). Plastic industry is facing pressure from the community to incorporate environmental management practices and it requires them tocarry out extensive assessment of their environmental policies. The organization are striving for obtaining the certification of ISO 14001, which can only be achieved through implication of environmental management practices (Martínez and Pérez, 2005; Iraldo, Testa and Frey, 2009; Lai and Wong, 2012).

In current years, the organizations have recognised the importance of environmental management practices especially in plastic industry firms (Thompson, Moore, Vom Saal and Swan, 2009). Due to the usual global awareness of environmental issues like global warming and reduction of the ozone layer, many organizations have focused on management and control strategies for environment protection and safety (Ilomäki and Melanen, 2001). They are focusing on ways to address environmental issues for retaining global customers and getting success in competitive global economy. Environmental management practices focus on minimizing negative environmental effects in all operations of a firm. For enabling firms to gain competitive advantage, environmental management practices give a controlled approach to manage environmental issues (Chan et al, 2012).Therefore it can be argued that during the recent era of globalization, most of the organization are striving for gaining good reputation in terms of their environment protecting behaviour, and they are taking initiatives for enhancing compliance with standard environment management practices.

It has been provided by the previous researchers that incorporation of environmental management practices are effective for the organizations to reduce environmental cost and to improve the overall performance of the firm (Agan, Acar and Borodin, 2013; Comoglio and Botta, 2012; Genovese, Lenny, Kumar and Tripathi, 2014). The (Molina?Azorín, Tarí, Claver?Cortés and López?Gamero, 2009) has argued that the incorporation of environment management practices in the policies of the company are the way for creating a soft and positive image in front of public and it can assist the organization in development of strong customer base. It is evident from the prior research that the cost of implementing the environment management practices is less than the benefits that can be availed from implementation of such strategy(Tarí, Claver-Cortés, Pereira-Moliner and Molina-Azorín, 2010; Tsoulfas and Pappis, 2006). Due to these increasing benefits of environment management most of the organizations are considering this aspect as an important strategic issue and they are actively engaged in obtaining certification of ISO 14001 through implication of environment management practices. Moreover, the conception of the green production and green supply chain management are considered as the two methods of promoting the environment management