Shrivastava (1995) stated that environmental management can reduce the negative effects of environmental unfriendly activities on the natural environment and enhance a firm’s competitive positions. Success in addressing environmental management could improve a firm’s image (Hick, 2000) and provide new opportunities for firms to enhance their capabilities (Hansmann and Claudia, 2001). Sharfman and Fernando (2008) indicated that improved environmental risk management reduces the probability of environmental crises that can negatively affect a firm’s expected cash flows such as lawsuits, clean-up costs of environmental accidents, fines, reputation damage, etc. Gimenez et al. (2012) also argued that the use of more environmentally friendly materials and process can lead to resource reduction and efficiency, resulting in reduced costs. Profitable firms can afford to make sustainable investment in green activities to enhance their environmental performance (Stefan and Paul, 2008).

Greater collaboration among members of the supply chain is a key component to foster the development of improved environmental practices and reduce pollution (Gotschol et al., 2014; Vachon and Klassen, 2006). The green collaborative activities can benefit supply chain members from the economic and environmental points of view (De Giovanni and Zaccour, 2014). Yang et al. (2013) indicated that external green collaboration has positive impact on green performance and firm competiveness. Firms that integrate environmental responsibility into their economic strategies can achieve cost savings from resource reduction and efficiency while increasing revenue generated from improved stakeholder relations and brand image (Hart, 1995; Hoffman and Ventresca, 1999). Rao and Holt (2005) and Zhu and Sarkis (2004) also found that environmental programs that included both collaboration and assessment of business partners have a positive impact on economic performance.

2.5. Impact on Sustainable Development (Social Dimension)

It is nowadays believed that socially responsible firms,  which contribute both economically and ethically to the society and local communities they serve, are better positioned to grow in terms of reputation and revenues (Drobetz et al., 2014). Environmental programs have positive effect on internal and external communities (Gimenez et al., 2012; Pullan et al., 2009). The adoption of a process that generates less pollution improves the working conditions for employees and the community’s quality of life (Gimenez et al., 2012). The implementation of employees’ safety and enhancement of working conditions as well as supporting community projects may result in improvements to firm’s social performance and reputation. Relationship with the local community to promote positive image and building trust through various efforts from port authorities has been implemented (Saengsupavanich et al., 2009; Puig et al., 2015). Increased CSR reporting enhances firms’ transparency and lowers information costs on the part of investors, potentially leading to positive financial effects (Drobetz et al., 2014).

2.6. Vietnamese Ports

Vietnamese ports were selected as the target in this research due to several reasons. First of all, Vietnam is one of the fastest growing ASEAN countries  with  a  GDP  of  171.39  billion  US  dollars  in  2013  and   the increased Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) by 13.46%  since 2003 (42.72 billion US dollars) (World Bank, 2015). Similar growth pattern can also be found in the Vietnamese container throughputs with respect to the GDP growth of Vietnam (Table 1). From 2003 to 2013, the overall CAGR of Vietnamese container throughputs shows 15%. It can also be seen that the CAGR of three port regions have also increased with the similar growth rate as well (North – 16.83%, Central – 14.22%,  South – 14.47%). According to Trading Economics, GDP of Vietnam in 2020 is forecasted to be 193 billion US dollars, with a CAGR of 6.86% (Trading Economics, 2015). This strong promising forecasted growth allows Vietnamese ports to develop internally and externally to handle the increased projected throughputs, and this development needs to be conducted in a sustainable manner for the long-term economic growth of the country.