Customer environmental collaboration (CEC) is characterised by firms interacting closely with their customers on environmental issues, communicating sustainability information, and jointly developing environmentally friendly solutions. This cooperation can enhance each other in their understanding of the environmental demands and lead to the incorporation of the sustainability goal in their product design and supply (Rashid, Rasheed & Altay 2025b; Sharma et al. 2025). The joint environmental programmes help the firms become more efficient with their resources, reduce waste, and enhance their image of environmental friendliness, all of which are steps towards more SP.

Empirical studies have shown that environmental collaboration between customers is one of the most influential factors in obtaining sustainability effects, especially in an industrial supply chain where the expectations of customers and regulatory demands are becoming closer to the concept of environmental responsibility (Rashid et al. 2025a). The incorporation of customer input and environmental needs enables firms to enhance their environmental and economic performance by responding to both at the same time. In this regard, the hypothesis of the proposed study is as follows:

Green human resource management is a set of human resource (HR) practices that help promote the environmental awareness, skills and commitment of the employees, including green recruitment, green training, green performance appraisal and green reward systems (Nguyen & Nguyen 2025). These are necessary practices that would imbue organisational culture with a sustainability mindset and ensure the successful execution of environmental strategies.

Previous studies show that GHRM has the potential to influence organisational sustainability outcomes significantly and positively by motivating employees to participate in environmental practices and supporting the implementation of green practices in the functional areas (Hu, Xu & Yang 2025; Hussein et al. 2023). The role of human capital has become paramount in industrial contexts, where operational activities have a pronounced impact on the environment. As such, the hypothesis is as follows:

The concept of GI refers to the creation and implementation of environmentally sound products, processes and technologies that are aimed at reducing the environmental footprint and increasing the efficiency of operations (Martínez Falcó et al. 2025). It enables firms to achieve sustainability goals by integrating environmental issues into innovation efforts, including eco-design, cleaner production and optimisation of processes.

The existing literature once again confirms that GI can boost SP by reducing emissions, minimising waste and improving resource use, while simultaneously strengthening long-term economic competitiveness (Hosen et al. 2025). It also enhances social sustainability in industrial sectors by improving workplace safety and compliance with environmental regulations. As a result, the hypothesis of the present study is:

Green purchasing (GP) involves selecting suppliers and materials in accordance with the ecological standards and promoting the use of non-polluted inputs and the use of environmentally friendly production methods (Yaputra et al. 2023). Through GP, organisations can reduce the environmental risks associated with upstream supply chain operations and improve overall sustainability performance.

Empirical data show that GP has the potential to supplement SP by decreasing the amount of waste disposal, increasing material efficiency and strengthening environmental compliance (De Oliveira Lima et al. 2024). However, the impact of GP can vary across situations, particularly in emerging economies where supplier capacities and environmental policies differ. Despite these contextual variations, GP still remains a central aspect of the GSCP. As such, the hypothesis presented below is given:

Sustainable innovation is a type of innovation process that aims to meet economic, environmental and social goals. In contrast to traditional innovation, SI is focused on long-term value creation by means of environmentally friendly and socially inclusive solutions (AL-khatib & Ramayah 2025; Hosen et al. 2025).

Available literature suggests that SI can improve SP as it helps firms to create green products, to optimise and streamline the production process, and to react appropriately to the sustainability demands of the stakeholders (Shan, Li & Shi 2020). In industrial contexts, SI helps to ensure resilience and competitiveness in the long run. Resting on this argument, the following hypothesis is created:

Green purchasing can also be an important driver of GI, as it motivates suppliers to adopt clean technologies and practices. By selecting suppliers and partnering in an environmentally oriented manner, firms have access to external knowledge and competencies to support GI efforts (Sarfraz et al. 2022).

Empirical studies show that companies that are involved in GP are more likely to invest in green product and process development because cooperation with suppliers can be used to spread green technologies (Rasheed, Rashid & Ngah 2024). In this regard, the proposal of the study is:

Sustainable innovation and GI are closely related concepts, as they both emphasise the development of value that is responsible towards the environment. Sustainable innovation provides a strategic direction that supports the green product and process development, and consequently enhances the GI capabilities of firms (Alqarni et al. 2023; Correia et al. 2024).

According to the existing literature, companies with a strong SI have a more advantageous position to develop and adopt GIs that can boost the environmental and operational performance (Singh & Maheswaran 2024). In that regard, the hypothesis below is postulated:

The development of GI is expected to positively impact SP, but this effect may also depend on the context. The moderating role of GHRM is critical, as it enhances staff capacity and desire to support innovation-based sustainability programmes. With the help of specific training programmes, performance incentives and environmental awareness programmes, GHRM enhances the adoption of GI approaches (Correia et al. 2024; Ibrahim & Eitah 2025).

Green human resource management is bound to influence the success of innovation initiatives in industrial companies, where the efficient use of GI often requires cross-functional collaboration and employee involvement. In line with this, this study hypothesises:

The proposed study adopts a quantitative, cross-sectional design to analyse how GSCP, GI, GHRM and SP are related in Jordan’s industrial sector. Quantitative research methods are needed to test the theoretically based hypotheses and evaluate the relationship among the latent constructs in a complex manner based on structural equation modelling techniques (Hair, Ringle & Sarstedt 2013). In this regard, partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the proposed research model.

The target population for this study comprises industrial enterprises in Jordan, which include manufacturing and production-based firms across various industrial subsectors. These entities were selected because they have a high environmental impact and are increasingly subject to environmental regulations, sustainability principles and stakeholder demands.

Given that the constructs considered in the present research relate to organisational strategies and managerial practices, the unit of analysis is the organisation, and the unit of observation is the manager.

The study data were collected from 300 managers working in Jordanian industrial organisations. This is a large enough sample to meet the minimum criteria of PLS-SEM and provide sufficient statistical power to reject (or accept) the hypotheses. The 10-times rule states that the maximum size of the required samples will be at least 10 times the largest number of structural paths to any endogenous variable in the model (Hair et al. 2021). The sample size is sufficient to meet this criterion.

The respondents were selected through a purposive (judgemental) sampling technique, and they had adequate knowledge and experience in supply chain management, sustainability initiatives, innovation activities and HR practices. The target population of the study was senior and mid-level managers, given their direct involvement in strategic decision-making and in implementing the green supply chain and other sustainability-related practices.

The managers were selected as key informants because they could provide more precise evaluations of practices and performance outputs at the firm level than non-managerial employees. This strategy finds wide application in the research on the green supply chain and sustainability (Hosen et al. 2025).

A structured, self-administered questionnaire was distributed to managers of industrial enterprises to collect data. The questionnaire was distributed in both electronic and printed versions to increase response rates. The instrument was reviewed by academic scholars and industry practitioners before the main data collection to ensure it was clear and relevant to the industrial environment in Jordan. The survey was completely voluntary, with respondents being guaranteed confidentiality and anonymity. All responses were collected, analysed, and used solely for academic research, in accordance with ethical research standards.

To ensure content validity and measurement reliability in the present study, all constructs were measured with multi-item scales based on prior studies. All measurement items were rated by participants on a 5-point Likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The evaluation of CEC was conducted using items adapted from Hutomo et al. (2020), and the evaluation of GP was conducted using scales developed by De Oliveira Lima et al. (2024). Operationalisation of SI was measured using items adapted from Atieh and Abushaega (2025), whereas GI was measured using validated scales from Hosen et al. (2025). Green human resource management was assessed using adaptions of the items used by Novitasari and Agustia (2021), thereby representing green practices in recruitment, training and performance management. Finally, SP was theorised as a multidimensional construct encompassing economic, environmental and social performance dimensions, and was measured using items adapted from previous sustainability-performance studies (Miller, Pawloski & Standridge 2010).

The SmartPLS software (SmartPLS GmbH, Monhein am Rhein, Germany) was used to analyse the obtained data using the PLS-SEM method. The analysis was done in two major steps. To begin with, internal consistency reliability, convergent and discriminant validity of the measurement model were assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability (CR), average variance extracted (AVE) and Fornell–Larcker criterion (Hair et al. 2019).

Secondly, the structural model was tested using path coefficients, t-values, p-values, and the coefficient of determination (R²). The relationship hypotheses were tested using a bootstrapping process with 5000 resamples to check their statistical significance. In addition, an interaction term between GHRM and GI was created to explore their moderating impact on SP.

To reduce the risk of common method bias, a number of procedural remedies were implemented, including ensuring respondent anonymity, improving the clarity of the scales, and isolating the predictor and criterion variables in the questionnaire. Moreover, statistical assessments were conducted as per the guidelines of Podsakoff et al. (2003).

The measurement model was tested to assess the reliability and validity of the latent constructs before structural testing. According to the suggestions provided (Hair & Alamer 2022), the evaluation included indicator reliability, internal consistency reliability, conversant validity and discriminant validity.

The reliability of the indicator was evaluated by measuring the item loadings of the measurement model. According to Table 1, all factor loadings are above the recommended factor of 0.70, indicating that the indicators are a good representation of their constructs.

Cronbach’s alpha and CR were used to measure internal consistency. The findings show that Cronbach’s alpha values range from 0.818 to 0.897, all above the acceptable level of 0.70. Similarly, CR scores range from 0.878 to 0.922, indicating a high degree of internal consistency across all constructs.

The coefficient of convergent validity was evaluated using the AVE criterion. The AVE values for all constructs exceed the recommended level of 0.50, ranging from 0.619 to 0.716, indicating that the constructs explain more than half of the variance in their indicators.

As illustrated in Figure 2, the results demonstrate that the measurement model has satisfactory indicator reliability, internal consistency reliability and convergent validity, thereby justifying the sufficiency of the measurement scale and allowing further analysis of the structural model.

The structural model was tested to determine the hypothesised correlations among the study’s constructs. The path coefficients were found to be important through a bootstrapping process of 5000 resamples, where standardised path coefficients (β), t-values and p-values were analysed (Hair & Alamer 2022).

The findings showed that CEC has a significant positive impact on SP (β = 0.811, p < 0.001), thereby supporting H1. Green human resource management also presents a substantial impact on SP (β = 0.475, p < 0.001), supporting H2. This is a negative relationship, but one that is statistically significant and thus supported. In addition, GI exhibits a very significant positive effect on SP (β = 1.095, p < 0.001), supporting H3. Green purchasing has a considerable impact on GI (β = 0.204, p = 0.013) and SP (β = 0.278, p = 0.003), thereby supporting H4 and H6, respectively. The results also show that SI has a large positive impact on GI (β = 0.999, p < 0.001) and SP (β = 0.812, p < 0.001), thereby supporting H5 and H7. These findings highlight that SI plays a central role in promoting innovation and achieving performance-based sustainability outcomes. Regarding the moderating effect, the interaction between GHRM and GI was statistically significant (β = 0.024, p = 0.027), indicating that GHRM moderates the relationship between SP and GI. Altogether, the findings of the structural model provide strong empirical evidence for the proposed research model, confirming that GSCP, innovation capacities and human-resource-related aspects are crucial to improving SP in the Jordanian industrial sector (Table 4).

The results show that CEC and SP are strongly and positively related, meaning that companies that involve customers in environmental activities achieve better sustainability outcomes. The latter finding aligns with previous studies that highlight the significance of relationship collaboration when working in a green supply chain (Benzidia, Makaoui & Bentahar 2021; Moh’d Anwer 2025). Through the lens of dynamic capabilities, customer collaboration contributes to a firm’s ability to perceive environmental needs and respond by organising sustainable behaviours.

In the Jordanian industrial environment, CEC appears to be of particular concern in light of increasing regulatory pressure and growing customer interest in environmental issues. The results contribute to the literature by demonstrating that customer-based environmental partnership remains an effective means of achieving sustainability, even in resource-constrained industrial settings.

The empirical results prove that GHRM has a strong but negative direct impact on SP. This observation, however, appears incompatible with the stance according to which sustainability-oriented HR practices normally involve short-term investments and organisational rebalancing before generating sustainable returns (Awwad Al-Shammari et al. 2022). In this regard, GHRM is a long-term capacity investment rather than a timely generator of performance returns from an RBV perspective.

In the context of nascent industrial environments (such as Jordan), GHRM implementation can also cause an immediate increase in operational complexity and additional training costs, or confront employees, thereby putting pressure on short-term performance results. This fact highlights the importance of considering time lags and situational variables in evaluating the performance implications of GHRM.

The potential of GI to have a significant positive effect on SP underscores the critical role of innovation in attaining SP goals. The results can be compared to previous research that emphasises the importance of GI as an instrumental process to help companies transform environmental activities into actual performance results (Le, Vo & Venkatesh 2022; Leal-Millán et al. 2016). From the perspective of dynamic capabilities, GI enables companies to continually redesign their resources and processes in response to environmental problems.

In Jordan’s industrial sector, where companies face high energy costs and scarce natural resources, the concept of GI appears to be the primary driver of sustainability performance, thereby supporting the strategic significance of sustainability through innovation.

The results reveal that GP has a negative direct impact on SP but a considerable impact on GI. This two-fold role supports previous hypotheses that upstream green operations might have short-term cost liabilities but development opportunities in the long run (Lerman et al. 2022). In emerging economies, limited supplier willingness and high costs of environmentally friendly inputs may constrain performance in the early stages. However, GP enables firms to access environmentally friendly suppliers and green technologies, thereby improving their innovation capacity. This fact also suggests that GP is an indirect facilitator of sustainability through innovation, rather than a direct performance driver.

The correlations between SI and GI, and between SI and SP, are positive, highlighting the importance of a sustainability-oriented innovation mindset. This result is consistent with the previous literature that states that SI has a positive impact on firms to improve their ability to produce environmentally friendly products and processes and remain competitive (Chan et al. 2020).

Sustainable innovation is therefore a strategic basis for achieving both innovation-based and performance-based sustainability in industrial companies.

The nexus between GI and SP is moderately significant, as evidenced by the substantial GHRM, which further clarifies the role of situational human capital. This discovery is in line with the claim that the effectiveness of sustainability strategies that rely on innovation depends on the skills, motivation and organisational support system of employees (Ibrahim & Alzubi 2024). Green innovation alone in the Jordanian industrial environment might not result in significant improvements in performance unless supported by comparable HR practices. Green human resource management is therefore a capability multiplier that increases the impact of innovation on sustainability performance, rather than a performance driver.

The current study has several valuable theoretical implications for the green supply chain management, sustainability and organisational capabilities literature. Firstly, the study contributes to the GSCM literature by empirically demonstrating that green practices cannot be regarded as single operational instruments but as a system of interconnected strategic capabilities. The research findings, by examining CEC, GP, SI, GI and GHRM, simultaneously reveal that SP results from the synergistic and interactive effects of supply chain, innovation and HR capabilities. This combined approach builds on prior research that has primarily investigated green practices in isolation.

Secondly, the results contribute to the RBV by showing that not every sustainability-oriented capability positively affects short-run performance. The large but negative direct influence of GP and GHRM on SP indicates that certain green capabilities are expensive, multifaceted investments whose benefits may be realised only over time or indirectly, through innovation. Such a subtlety adds value to the RBV as it illustrates the temporality and contextuality of sustainability-related resources in the emerging economies.

Thirdly, the research presents strong empirical evidence for the Dynamic Capabilities Theory, identifying GI as one of the key processes by which the firm can convert the GSCP into SP. The highly significant impact of GI on SP confirms that the capability to constantly reorganise products, processes and technologies is decisive for achieving sustainability in unstable, resource-limited industrial settings. Further, the moderating role of GHRM highlights that dynamic capabilities are not technology-driven but are deeply rooted in human and organisational systems.

Finally, it will provide useful empirical data in an emerging-economy setting that has rarely been researched, as it targets Jordan’s industrial sector. The results not only make sustainability and supply chain theories more externally valid, but also explain that their fundamental assumptions are applicable outside developed economies and also suggest crucial contextual contingencies associated with cost structures, institutional pressures and human-capital constraints.

The results of this research have several practical implications for industrial managers, policymakers and other decision makers who aim to improve their sustainability performance.

The findings for industry managers imply the strategic importance of engaging customers in environmental programmes. Customers should be actively involved in environmental partnerships by managers, co-designs and sustainability-related decisions, as this collaboration significantly contributes to SP. This could include mutual environmental audits, common sustainability goals and the development of products with key concerns on environmental performance.

The results also suggest that green procurement must be undertaken in a strategic approach and not symbolically. Even though green procurement can cause a temporary performance stress owing to higher costs and supplier restrictions, it is a key to promoting GI. With this in mind, green procurement is a long-term investment in innovation capacity, supplier development, long-term partnerships, and the progressive incorporation of environmental criteria into the procurement decision-making process; the managers should consider it. Concerning green human-resource management, the findings indicate that implementing green HR practices alone is not sufficient to enhance performance. It is the responsibility of managers to make ensure that GHRM systems are closely aligned with operational and innovation processes. This involves connecting environmental training to specific innovation projects, aligning performance appraisal systems with sustainability performance, and developing incentive systems that reward innovation-driven environmental performance rather than compliance.

In terms of policy, conclusions are that policymakers ought to contribute to the sustainability of industries not only by imposing regulations but also by fostering innovations and building capacity. This can include incentives to encourage GI, supporting programmers in terms of supplier’s development, investment in sustainability-based skills development and training programmers.

All in all, the study highlights that the industrial sector cannot achieve SP through isolated green efforts. Instead, it requires an integrated approach that encompasses supply-chain practices, innovation capabilities and human-resource systems into a coherent sustainability system.

This study, in spite of its contributions, has several limitations that need to be taken into account and overcome in future research. Firstly, the research design is cross-sectional, with limitations that it does not enable the researcher to obtain the dynamic and long-term impact of GSCP and innovation capability on SP. It is recommended that future researchers use longitudinal designs to study changes in the performance implications of green practices over time, especially given the high cost of sustainability investments.

Secondly, the respondents were only managers in Jordanian industries, which is suitable for capturing organisational practices, but it could lead to perceptual bias. The study may be improved in the future by using multi-respondent designs or by adding objective performance indicators to strengthen the measurement.

Thirdly, the research is conducted in a single-country setting and may not be generalisable to other institutional and cultural settings. Contrasting cross-country analyses would be beneficial, as they would indicate how regulatory regimes, market maturity and the availability of required resources influence the GSCP’s efficacy.

Lastly, although this study analyses the most important variables in supply chain, innovation and HR, further studies may expand the model by adding more contextual variables, such as organisational culture, digital technologies, the level of environmental regulation or the practice of the circular economy. Investigating other mediating and moderating processes can also contribute to the existing knowledge of sustainability-oriented value creation.