Reconcilement of conflicting goals: a novel operations research-based methodology for environmental management

Abstract

The elements of the supply and environmental chain are identified and connected through an operations research process. A framework is developed to include these chains into a process that deals with operations research problems within two different, complex areas: economic (supply) and natural systems (environmental), and emphasizes the influence of the solution on both systems and their performance. The framework helps researchers to get a better insight into the issues considering both environmental and industry aspects. The study proposes a causal relationship between the supply chain and environmental chain and begins to make a bridge between these two chains using operations research methods and techniques. In this context, a multi-period scenario-based stochastic model is developed. To deal with the uncertainties and to investigate the trade-offs between the objective functions, an interactive fuzzy multi-objective method is performed. In the case study section, reconcilement of the conflicting objectives in a waste management case is questioned and the future recommendations are highlighted.