Making sustainability rankings using compromise programming. An application to European paper industry

Dı́az-Balteiro, Luis; Voces, Roberto; Romero, Carlos

doi:10.14214/sf.103

Cited by 34 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…They have been used to develop CIs applied to diverse sectors of services, activities, or processes [2][3][4]. In particular, methodologies based on goal programming (GP) are of great interest for the construction of CIs and they have been successfully applied to diverse fields as tourism [5,6], manufacturing [7], human sustainable development [8][9][10], or environmental sustainability [11,12]. The main advantages of using GP to develop CIs are: it is not necessary to normalize the initial set of PIs; the CI uses the complete information included in the initial set of PIs; and it does not require a large number of units in comparison with the number of initial indicators.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Two-Phase Method to Assess the Sustainability of Water Companies

2019

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Composite indicators are becoming more relevant for evaluating the performance of water companies from a holistic perspective. Some of them are related with economic aspects, and others focus on social and environmental features. Consequently, a multidimensional evaluation is necessary for handling the great amount of information provided by multiple single indicators of a different nature. This paper presents a two-phase approach to evaluate the sustainability of water companies. First, a partial composite indicator for each dimension (social, environmental, economic) is obtained using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). Then, a global indicator is obtained, in terms of the values reached in the previous stage for every partial indicator, by means an optimization problem rooted in data envelopment analysis (DEA). Our proposal offers the possibility of analyzing the performance of each water company under each dimension that characterizes the concept of sustainability, as well as a joint assessment including all the dimensions, facilitating the decision-making process. We apply it to evaluate the sustainability of 163 Portuguese water companies. The results show the strengths and weaknesses of each unit and serve as a guideline to decision-makers on the aspects for improving the performance of water utilities.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Two-Phase Method to Assess the Sustainability of Water Companies

2019

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“…Evidence suggests that forest resources will continue to be sufficient to meet the near-term needs of papermakers, though not in all regions of the world. While pulping and papermaking practices can have various environmental consequences (Diaz-Balteiro et al 2011;Demel et al 2012), the underlying technologies are based on efficient utilization of renewable materials. In principle, the manufacture of paper can be highly sustainable, from an environmental perspective.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prospects for Maintaining Strength of Paper and Paperboard Products While Using Less Forest Resources: A Review

Hubbe¹

2013

BioResources

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Paper production requires large amounts of cellulosic fiber, whereas the world's forested lands and croplands have a finite capacity to supply such resources. To deal with likely future pressure on forest resources, as well as to hold down costs of materials, publications examined in the preparation of this review suggest that the paper industry will need to implement several concurrent strategies. In particular, the industry can be expected to view recycling as a central part of its activities. Basis weights of various paper-based products can be expected to decrease over the coming decades, and more of the fiber content will be replaced with fillers such as calcium carbonate. Such trends will place intense demands upon chemical-based strategies to enhance the bonding within paper and paperboard. Based on the literature, further progress in reducing the amount of new forest resources used to meet a given set of paper product requirements will require a combined approach, taking into account various fiber attributes, nanostructures, novel concepts in bond formation, and advances in the unit operations of papermaking.

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“…Often, sustainability is assessed along economical, social and environmental dimensions, and numerous impact indicator sets have been developed for the forestry sector. For example, Voces et al [35] and Diaz-Balteiro et al [36] show how to address sustainability issues with a composite index of various country-level statistical indicators. Indicators can also be combined in multi-criteria or sustainability impact analyses to compare, e.g., different policy choices or technological change [37].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing the Wood Value Chain in Northern Norway Taking Into Account National and Regional Economic Trade-Offs

Johansen

Werner

Nørstebø

2017

Forests

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Abstract:As a consequence of past decades of extensive afforestation in Norway, mature forest volumes are increasing. National forestry politics call for sustainable and efficient resource usage and for increased regional processing. Regional policies seek to provide good conditions for such industries to be competitive and to improve regional value creation. We demonstrate how methods from operations research and regional macro-economics may complement each other to support decision makers in this process. The operations research perspective is concerned with finding an optimally designed wood value chain and an aggregated planning of its operations, taking a holistic perspective on strategic-tactical level. Using Input-Output analysis methods based on statistics and survey data, regional macro-economics helps to estimate each industry actor's value creation and impact on society beyond immediate value chain activities. Combining these approaches in a common mathematical optimization model, a balance can be struck between industry/business and regional political interests. For a realistic case study from the northern part of coastal Norway, we explore this balance from several perspectives, investigating value chain profits, economic ripple effects and regional resource usage.

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Making sustainability rankings using compromise programming. An application to European paper industry

Cited by 34 publications

References 47 publications

A Two-Phase Method to Assess the Sustainability of Water Companies

A Two-Phase Method to Assess the Sustainability of Water Companies

Prospects for Maintaining Strength of Paper and Paperboard Products While Using Less Forest Resources: A Review

Optimizing the Wood Value Chain in Northern Norway Taking Into Account National and Regional Economic Trade-Offs

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