2. Green Practices: Drivers for Change
Encompassing green manufacturing (GM) or environmentally conscious manufacturing are manufacturing matters related to pollution control, waste recycling, conservation, environmental protection and fulfilling legal and regulatory obligations
[15][16]. GM revolves around lessening the “environmental impact by reducing toxic waste, pollution, optimizing use of raw material, and energy by applying end of life (EOL), cradle to cradle and close loop approach”
[15] (p. 20). It broadly seeks to ensure the minimization of adverse effects on the environment in designing and delivering in the production process
[15].
Past studies have demonstrated that GM represents a combination of a set of actions and initiatives that can lead to the mitigation of adverse environmental effects of firms’ activities
[15][17]. By incorporating the green design of products, and the use of recyclable materials and packaging, GM can pave the way for firms to enhance their competitiveness via cost saving from waste
[17]. Indeed, with resource conservation, effective and robust waste management, and environmental protection measures coupled with pollution control, firms can mitigate the negative or bad press stemming from the lack of attention to the negative effects of their production activities. This also helps firms to adopt superior processes and standards in their industry that enhance their market competitiveness.
2.1. Green Manufacturing
Manufacturing is viewed as one of the panaceas to fostering rapid industrialization and economic development not only in Africa, but across the global south. It has historically played a pivotal role in the development of many advanced nations and newly industrialized nations in Asia, including South Korea and Japan. In recent decades, manufacturing production across the African continent has surged and in West, East, Central and southern Africa increased in value from USD 73 bn in 2005 to around USD 157 bn in 2014 [18]. However, manufacturing as a share of GDP declined from 19% in 1975 to 11% in 2011 [18]. Accordingly, there is a need for the greening of industries to develop and enrich the manufacturing base to combat unemployment and foster industrialization. Indeed, GM can emerge as a means to combat social problems such as youth unemployment and environmental depletions in both urban and rural areas in Africa. In responding to recent “calls to action” for combating climate change, there has been a growing emphasis on GM [19].
2.2. Impediment of Transition to GM
For many developing nations such as Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, manufacturing firms’ growth are often curtailed by intense competition from cheap imports, a lack of access to finance and erratic power supply
[20]. Many African nations have generally failed to capitalize on the relatively low labour rates to compete with rivals domiciled in Southeast Asia due to “very low levels of output per hour”
[21] (p. nd). Another issue is the lack of size/scale to build large factories with the potential to accrue synergetic benefits and ultimately be able to compete with imports
[21]. However, the success of GM might be predicated on skills development and the application of latest manufacturing technologies. From a public policy standpoint, ECOWAS and EAC countries: Ghana and Nigeria, and Kenya, focusing on green has potential for these to become hubs for GM on the continent. The Switch Africa Green project that Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya have ratified is another channel to realizing their green economic goals.
3. Conclusions and Limitations
We propose a framework that delineates the structural composition of costs imposed by market violence that ranges from extraction to e-waste disposal. These include: (i) loss of economic rents and initial environmental cost due to exploitative extraction, (ii) net exportation of resources, (iii) stagnation of local industries, (iv) loss of national brand attraction due to being a dump site for other nations’ wastes and (v) the final environmental and health costs resulting from the unsustainable management of waste.
We explore the need for green manufacturing as a solution to the on-going waste problem. However, this may be inadequate unless the initial problem of exploitation and structural inefficiencies are made to accommodate sustainable innovations. As matters stand, it no longer seems possible to deflect the main arguments about responsible production and consumption or the accompanying individual and collective responsibilities in managing waste. As markets rise, there also seems to be a fall in the quality of health
[22][23] and a weakening of other determinants of health
[24]. The policy interventions are few, inconsistent, and not sufficiently radical to fix the problem with urgency despite the scale. The lack of repair resulting from planned obsolescence and high costs of spare parts/components should now receive serious regulatory and research attention. The suggested green manufacturing agenda must be met with a change in attitude towards green consumption, increased investments in technical education and other incentives, without which the sustainability agenda will not succeed.