The growing social concern about the environment makes the reverse logistics activities to become the focus of numerous businesses opportunities. The present study tries to identify which are the most important motivations and the profits obtained by the firms which implement reverse logistics activities. To corroborate this, an empirical study was carried out in the Spanish auxiliary automotive industry obtaining that the profits are possible to classify in two big groups: economical and ecological profits. A 'green' image has become an important marketing element. This development has stimulated a number of companies to explore options for take-back and recovery of their products. Overhauled products may be used as spares or sold on secondary markets while requiring only a small fraction of the original production costs for repair so this is and important economical profits. It has been used EQS as software tool in order to verify the considered hypothesis.
The automobile manufacturing industry plays a very important role in a country's economy. The importance of automobile manufacturing industry lies in its sheer size and complexity in terms of the direct and indirect influence it commands across many other industries. While millions of people are employed in the automobile manufacturing industry, it is estimated that more than two and half times that number are employed in the auxiliary companies that supply parts to the automobile manufacturing companies. The auxiliary companies represent a group of businesses of various sizes, types, and geographical locations, producing a vast variety of products ranging from the very simple to the extremely intricate. In this study, the current environmental practices of management in the core Spanish auxiliary companies that do business with the automobile manufacturing industry (and thus form a large part of the automobile manufacturing industry's supply chain) are investigated. We show that while automobile manufacturing companies are under scrutiny to become more and more environmentally friendly, not only at their manufacturing stage but also at their products' useful and EOL stages, there appears to be no such burden on the auxiliary companies. Our conclusion is based on an elaborate survey conducted during the fall of 2004 of Spanish auxiliary companies with questions about the characteristics, environmental practices and reverse logistics related activities carried out by the companies.
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