Sustainability assessment of waste cooking oil-based biodiesel plant in developing economy based on F-DEMATEL and F-ISM approaches

Abstract

Developing clean and renewable energy resources for long-term usage is a crucial concern in developing countries. In this regard, biodiesel technology is drawing a lot of public interest throughout the world. The issues associated with the sustainability of a biodiesel plant are intimately connected with restricted natural resources, political influences, energy independence, economic prosperity and global stability. Therefore, this paper aspires to identify the most influential factors that affect the sustainability of a biodiesel plant and describe interactions among them. The study focuses on identifying 36 factors based on an extensive literature review, questionnaire, experts’ opinion and website in the context of developing economies. These factors include social, environmental and economic aspects. A framework based on fuzzy-interpretive structural modelling (F-ISM) and fuzzy-decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (F-DEMATEL) is applied to investigate the identified factors. The F-ISM approach allows a better understanding of the contextual interactions between the factors and classify them based on their driving and dependent powers. The fuzzy-DEMATEL technique facilitates in identifying the influential and influenced factors and categorizes them into cause-and-effect groups. The findings of the study suggest that ‘Legal and regulatory compliances’, ‘Political constraints’, ‘International relations’, ‘Health and education’ and ‘Public safety and security’ are the five most influential factors that are needed to be addressed for the sustainability of biodiesel plant. The paper also presents a few strategies, which can be applied as a guiding step by the decision-makers to formulate policies for the effective implementation of sustainable growth of the biodiesel plant.

Application of ISM to Identify the Contextual Relationships between the Sustainable Solutions Based on the Principles and Pillars of Industry 4.0: A Sustainability 4.0 Model for Law Offices

“…The most important sustainable solutions were Energy Saving, Environmental Conservation, Increased Safety, Quality Improvement, End of Waste, Infrastructure, and Cost Reduction [21,27,33,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46]48,49].…”

“…• SS4: Increased Security-Use technologies such as cybersecurity to protect the company from the harmful invasion of software and hardware. With the heavy work being performed by machines, it generates more security for employees [41,43,45,48,49]. Industry 4.0 enabling technologies can contribute to increasing security in law firm processes by offering advanced data security technologies, ensuring the protection of confidential client information, continuously monitoring the firm's IT systems for suspicious activity or anomalies, and managing access control.…”

“…Some studies related to sustainability were developed, as presented below. The ISM method has been used to find the main significant aspects of the long-term sustainable development of a biodiesel plant located in India [45]. The authors identified 36 factors, divided into social, economic, and environmental classes, through bibliographic research and questionnaires with specialists from the academic, industrial, and governmental sectors, concluding that the most relevant factors impact a sustainable biodiesel plant, such as political constraints, international relations, health and education, public safety and protection, local agency cooperation, government subsidy, and topographical characteristics [45].…”