A dynamic sustainability framework for petroleum refinery projects with a life cycle attitude

Abstract

For developing countries, energy infrastructure projects are not only important from a political and strategic point of view, but they are also of major significance in terms of sustainability. Energy infrastructure projects have major impacts on all three pillars of sustainability, that is, social, economic, and environmental. Refinery projects can have an even bigger impact on all three pillars, in terms of magnitude and severity of the consequences. Therefore, it is important to introduce methods and solutions to improve the level of sustainability at which petroleum refinery projects are designed, constructed, and operated. Petroleum refinery projects are multidisciplinary, multiattribute, and multistakeholder projects and decisions in this regard are always difficult to make and unclear about sustainability in the life-cycle of the project. To deal with these complexities, a dynamic sustainability assessment framework has been proposed in this study. In this framework, different petroleum refinery project's properties such as location, size, functions, stakeholders, products, environmental resiliency, and so on are considered in various life-cycle phases and are used to come up with a customized framework. Accordingly, a hierarchy of the latest and the most suitable Multiple Criteria Decision Making methodologies are utilized for different decision-making environments to realize the required dynamicity in these projects. The methods used here are Grey Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment, Fuzzy Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution, and Combinative Distance-Based Assessment, each of which are proposed for different decisionmaking levels. The proposed methodology is applied to a real petroleum refinery project as a case study. Based on the case study results, the economical pillar gets nearly 50% of the importance based on the project's specific situation. Also, health, atmosphere, and economic performance are the most important indicators among social, environmental, and economic pillars, respectively. At the lowest level, quantitative factors are also ranked and weighted. For instance, the frequency of labors' illness is the highest health factors in the social pillar of sustainability.

Airport sustainability through life cycle assessments: A systematic literature review

“…LCA is an analysis of the potential environmental impacts of a product, material, process, or other measurable activity over a defined life cycle period (ISO, 1997). It has been applied to various diverse areas already (Hasheminasab et al, 2020;Onat et al, 2021), and is a valid method for studying the overall emissions from an airport. Key elements of LCA are identifying and quantifying the energy and raw materials consumed, emissions and wastes generated; evaluating the potential environmental impacts of the energy, raw materials, emissions, and wastes; and assessing available options for reducing their environmental impacts (EEA, 2022).…”

Revisiting the relationship between sustainable project management and project success: The moderating role of stakeholder engagement and team building

“…For instance, Larson et al (2018) posited that the threat of global warming and climate change has brought sustainability to the fore. Accordingly, it is argued that SPM has become an increasing focus for project management (Hasheminasab et al, 2020;Pinto, 2020) and emerging literature suggests that PS is largely determined by how well firms manage and integrate critical sustainability issues at various stages of the project life cycle (Carvalho & Rabechini, 2017;Hasheminasab et al, 2020;Ismayilova & Silvius, 2021;Larsson & Larsson, 2020;Olawumi & Chan, 2019;Silvius & Schipper, 2015;Wo zniak, 2021;Yazici, 2020).…”

A heterogeneous decision criteria system evaluating sustainable infrastructure development: From the lens of multidisciplinary stakeholder engagement

“…Three DC metrics (i.e., DC7, DC8, and DC10) with high factor loadings are used to interpret it. These metrics, classified as advanced resource‐based metrics, concern energy‐saving (Hasheminasab et al, 2020; ISI, 2018). These findings indicate that resource aspect is highly concerned by main contractors compared to other criteria.…”