Corporate Environmental Management of Private Businesses in Saudi Arabia

557 Pages·2010·4.83 MB·English

Corporate Environmental Management of Private
Businesses in Saudi Arabia

Samia S.Magbool
A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersfield
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

2009
A prayer

O‟ ALLAH

Give me the strength to change what I can change
The Ability to accept what I cannot change and
The Wisdom to know the difference
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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns
any copyright in it (the ―Copyright‖) and s/he has given The University of Huddersfield the
right to use such Copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or
teaching purposes.
- Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the
regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from
the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made.
- The ownership of any patents, designs, trademarks and any and all other intellectual
property rights except for the Copyright (the ―Intellectual Property Rights‖) and any
reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables (―Reproductions‖), which
may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by
third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be
made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant
Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions.
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DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this to the memory of my beloved parents who got me to
where I am today. Also I would like to dedicate this work to my beloved brother,
Sami, to express my eternal and deepest gratitude for being my role model and
father figure after my parents.
I would further like to dedicate this work to my dearest husband who provided all
the support and encouragement needed to get me through this endeavour.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the name of Allah, the most Generous and the most Merciful. All praise is due to
Allah, for giving me inspiration and strong heartedness along this journey. My thanks to Allah is
not complete if I do not thank all the people involved directly or indirectly with this research
project.
I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Julia Meaton for her support, excellent guidance
and supervision throughout the research project and also during the writing of this thesis. I wish
to thank her for her patience, trust and confidence in me to carry out this project. Her guidance is
greatly appreciated. I would like also to thank dr. Abdullah A Naseer, my coadvisor for the
inspiring guidance and encouragement I have been getting from him since my Master program
studying.
A special thanks to King Abdul Aziz University for giving me the invaluable opportunity
to do my Ph.D. I would also like to thank the joint supervision programme coordinators for there
help in facilitating my work and dealing with problems that I encountered during the research.
Among them my special thanks to late Dr. Sami Hamdi (may his soul rest in peace). My thanks
are also due to Dr. Ammar Amin for his kindness and help that was always there when I needed
him.
I am deeply grateful to Dr. Fouad Dahlawi for always being their when any one needed
him. I also appreciate the efficient Ms Omaima Al Olagi and Ms Corneilia Kaba for helping me
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cope with all the administrative requirements. I am also grateful to His Excellency Dr. Ahmad
Ashour for providing me with all the information regarding the Saudi environment. I aslo thank
Dr Ahmad Al Gelani, Mr. Fayes Althega for providing me references Mr. Abdul Ellah Sabahi,
Mr. Adil Badeeb, and Mr Mutaz Kayal for their role in arranging the interviews for the case
studies.
My special thanks to my sisters and friends Sameera Almunai, Huda Burhan Saifaddin
&Lamia Daghstani for always being there for me. Last but not the least I would like to thank my
brothers and sisters for their support. A special thanks to my brother Sadeek who took me to
school on my first day and his continued support to this day.
I would like to acknowledge the love and support of all my chidren Ahmad, Yousef,
Muna, Suleiman my son in law mohmad and my daughters in law Razan and Walaa. Above all I
am grateful to Allah for blessing me with 4 grand children Raouf Joud, Abdulellah, and Waffa
who added a new flavour to my life.
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Table of Content
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ......................................................................................................... II
DEDICATION .............................................................................................................................. III
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... IV
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... XI
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... XII
ACRONYMS ............................................................................................................................... XV
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. XVII
CHAPTER 1 Corporate Environmental Management of Private Businesses in Saudi Arabia ...... 1
1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Research Objectives and Questions ...................................................................................... 9
1.3 General Research Design of the Study ................................................................................. 9
1.4 Data Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 10
1.5 General Outlines of the Thesis ............................................................................................ 11
CHAPTER 2 Historical Development of Environmental Concern and the Development of the
Concept of Sustainability and Sustainable Development ............................................................. 13
2.1 The Development of a Global Concern for the Environment ............................................. 13
2.2 Publications and Events Supporting Concern for the Environment ................................... 16
2.3 Global Attitude and concerns.............................................................................................. 30
2.4 The Development of the Definition of Sustainability Development .................................. 35
2.5 Environmental Sustainability .............................................................................................. 37
2.6 Social Sustainability............................................................................................................ 39
2.7 Economic Sustainability ..................................................................................................... 41
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2.8 The rise of Corporate Social Responsibility ....................................................................... 43
2.9 Corporate Environment Management ................................................................................. 46
CHAPTER 3 Initiatives, Charters and Guidelines of Corporate Environmental Management .... 50
3.1 General Initiatives and Principles ....................................................................................... 50
3.2 The CERES Principles ........................................................................................................ 51
3.3 The World Business Charter for Sustainable Development ............................................... 54
3.4 Global Compact .................................................................................................................. 56
3.5 The millennium development goals .................................................................................... 60
CHAPTER 4 Standards and Practical Tools for Corporate Environmental Management ........... 63
4.1 Environmental Management Systems (EMS) ..................................................................... 63
4.2 ISO 14000 Series ................................................................................................................ 67
4.3 ISO14001 and the Middle East ........................................................................................... 75
4.4 Eco- management and audit scheme (EMAS) .................................................................... 77
4.5 The Natural Step (TNS) ...................................................................................................... 88
4.6 SIGMA ................................................................................................................................ 91
4.7 Environmental Auditing...................................................................................................... 92
4.8 Working Group of Environmental Auditing (WGEA) ....................................................... 96
4.9 Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) ..................................................................... 100
4.10 Corporate Social Responsibility ..................................................................................... 103
4.11 Measuring environmental performance .......................................................................... 106
CHAPTER 5 Past Studies Investigating Corporate Management in Practice ............................ 109
5.1 Studies on the Effect of the Characteristics of Companies on the Uptake of CEMs ........ 109
5.2 Studies on the Effect of External and Internal Drivers and Barriers ................................ 119
VII
5.3 Evaluating Corporate Environmental Performance .......................................................... 130
5.4 The situation in Saudi Arabia ........................................................................................... 134
CHAPTER 6 Saudi Arabia And The Environment .................................................................... 136
6.1 Saudi Arabia – background ............................................................................................... 136
6.2 Environmental Policies and laws ...................................................................................... 141
6.3 The role of private sector and environmental challenges ................................................. 144
6.4 The role of Islam in response to environmental concerns ................................................ 145
6.5 The Saudi participation ..................................................................................................... 150
CHAPTER 7 The Conceptual Model ......................................................................................... 156
7.1 Company Characteristics .................................................................................................. 156
7.2 External and Internal Factors Affecting the Level of Uptake of Corporate Environmental
Initiative .................................................................................................................................. 163
7.3 Typology of Corporate Environmental Performance in Saudi Arabia ............................. 185
7.3.1 Measuring Performance ................................................................................................. 186
7.3.2 Environmental Initiatives ............................................................................................... 188
7.3.3 Environmental management practice ............................................................................. 189
CHAPTER 8 Research Methodology ......................................................................................... 192
8.1 Research Design and Methodology of Data Collection ................................................... 192
8.2 Sample of the study ........................................................................................................... 193
8.3 Data Collection ................................................................................................................. 208
8.4 Preparing data for Analysis ............................................................................................... 208
8.5 Coding ............................................................................................................................... 209
8.6 Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 210
8.7 Data Entry ......................................................................................................................... 211
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Verification ............................................................................................................................. 212
Cleaning Data.......................................................................................................................... 212
Data Analysis Techniques for stage one ................................................................................. 212
CHAPTER 9 Data Analysis ........................................................................................................ 214
9.1 Statistical methods used in the study ................................................................................ 214
9.2 Descriptive statistics of Demographic variables of the Investigated Companies. ............ 217
9.3 Descriptive statistics related to Measures of environmental performance ....................... 220
9.4 Environmental Management Initiatives (EI) .................................................................. 221
9.5 Descriptive analysis of Corporate Environmental Management measure (CEM).......... 229
CHAPTER 10 DATA EVALUATION AND INTERPRETATION.......................................... 257
10.1 Environmental Initiatives (EI) and Corporate Environmental Management (CEM) ...... 257
10.2 Environmental Initiatives (EI) and demographic factors ............................................... 260
10.3 Relationship between Environmental Initiatives EI and Corporate environmental
management (CEM) ................................................................................................................ 262
10.4 Relationship between CEM and demographic variables ................................................ 264
10.5 Relationship between the demographic variables and ICP categories of performance on
the sub measures of CEM ....................................................................................................... 266
10.6 Testing Hypothesis For Significant Differences between CEM and demographic
characteristics of sample companies ....................................................................................... 270
10.7 Analysis of responses to selected statements from CEM ............................................... 273
10.8 Summary of the quantitative stage .................................................................................. 279
CHAPTER 11 THE QUALITATIVE STUDY .......................................................................... 283
11.1 Methodology ................................................................................................................... 283
CHAPTER 12 QUALITATIVE STUDY OUTCOMES ............................................................ 291
12.1 Overview of responses .................................................................................................... 291
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