Environmental Collaboration as a Moderating Variable in the Relationship Between GSCM and Sustainability Performance

This study examines the relationship between Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) practices and sustainability performance and investigates whether environmental collaboration strengthens this relationship. The study adopts the Natural Resource-Based View (NRBV), which explains that environmentally oriented organizational capabilities can become strategic resources when firms develop pollution prevention, stewardship, and sustainable development capabilities. A quantitative survey was conducted among 53 owners and managers of manufacturing-oriented MSMEs in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, selected through purposive sampling. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS. The results show that GSCM practices have a positive and significant effect on sustainability performance (estimate = 0.177; p = 0.039), GSCM practices positively affect environmental collaboration (estimate = 0.615; p < 0.001), and environmental collaboration positively affects sustainability performance (estimate = 0.769; p < 0.001). Environmental collaboration also significantly moderates the relationship between GSCM practices and sustainability performance (estimate = 0.004; p = 0.019). These findings indicate that GSCM implementation becomes more effective when MSMEs develop collaborative environmental relationships with supply-chain partners. The study contributes by examining environmental collaboration as a boundary condition of the GSCM–sustainability performance relationship in MSMEs in Yogyakarta, a context that remains less represented in the recent literature.