Analyzing barriers of Green Lean practices in manufacturing industries by DEMATEL approach

Purpose Green Lean concepts offer methods for managing manufacturing organizations with the goal of improving organizational performance. Green Lean practices are good options to increase the environmental and operational performance of manufacturing industries. However, there are some barriers to implement Green Lean in manufacturing industries. This paper aims to identify these barriers by reviewing the literature and analyze inter-relationships amongst selected barriers. Design/methodology/approach This paper deals with the identification of barriers to the adoption of Green Lean practices in manufacturing industries. Using the DEMATEL approach and using the insights of experts, a cause and effect relationship diagram was generated through which the effect of barriers was analyzed. Findings Twelve barriers were categorized in terms of cause and effect, and the interrelationships of barriers were also analyzed. Threshold value is calculated as 0.134 and the values lower than a were eliminated to obtain the digraph. “Resistance to change,” “lack of top management commitment” and “lack of training to employees” are the most prominent barriers on the basis of their prominent score. Research limitations/implications Analysis in the research is highly dependent on expert judgments and opinions may be biased. However, the initial matrix obtained from the experts is hindered by the ambiguity about some relationships. But this can be improved by using fuzzy and grey set theories. The barriers used for the analysis are not from a specific type of manufacturing industry. Practical implications The findings will help the manufacturing organizations to simplify the most important barriers, the least significant barriers and the relationships between these barriers. This Berlin knowledge will enable administrators to increase awareness of the barriers in Green Lean implementation. “The top management commitment” and “government support” are most important for the removal of barriers to Green Lean strategies. Originality/value Very few scholars have used the DEMATEL approach to examine the sequence of the barriers to Green Lean implementation. The present study attempts to incorporate the DEMATEL model to assess the sequence of barriers to the implementation of Green Lean. This study investigates the degree of influence of barriers on each other and categorizes the barriers into cause and effect groups. This study is also intended to pave the way for future research in the path of the elimination of barriers to Green Lean strategies.