Leveraging environmental, social, and governance strategies for sustainable tannery solid waste management towards achieving sustainable development goals

Abstract

Tannery solid waste (TSW) management is vital for promoting sustainable development in the leather industry. However, sustainable management of TSW is challenging as it contains hazardous chemicals. Implementing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices can support managing TSW towards achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, it is not easy to implement ESG practices for TSW management since numerous challenges exist in the system. To assist TSW management through ESG implementation, it is imperative to investigate the interactions among challenges and mitigation strategies. However, the existing decision‐making models cannot deal with the uncertainty and vagueness on a border scale during interaction evaluation and alternatives ranking. Additionally, there is a shortage of scientific works on ESG practices in emerging economies. Therefore, this study, for the first time, offers an integrated novel Dombi t‐norm and Dombi t‐conorm grounded interval valued Fermatean fuzzy sets (IVFFSs) Delphi, an extended IVFFSs‐weighted influence non‐liner Gause system (WINGS), and novel IVFFSs‐TODIM approach which is utterly lacking in the present literature. Also, the study offers a strategic roadmap to understand the interlinkage of findings with SDGs. The results of the IVFFSs‐WINGS analysis confirmed that the “Lack of solid waste management policy” is the most critical challenge for ESG implementation. Further, IVFFSs‐TODIM analysis confirmed that the “Policy development for TSW management complying with ESG and SDGs” is the top ESG challenges mitigation strategy for TSW management. The study's findings will provide guidance for government agencies, policymakers, and relevant stakeholders of the emerging economies tannery industry for successful implementation of ESG practices, thus helping to achieve SDGs.