Integrating expert weighting and multi-criteria decision making into eco-efficiency analysis: the case of US manufacturing

Serkan Gumus, Gokhan Egilmez, Murat Kucukvar and Yong Shin Park
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Serkan Gumus: Turkish Military Academy, Ankara, Turkey
Murat Kucukvar: Istanbul Sehir University, Istanbul, Turkey
Yong Shin Park: UGPTI, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2016, vol. 67, issue 4, 616-628

Abstract: In this paper, the effect of weighting strategies on sustainability performance assessment is addressed. Eco-efficiency is used as the main metric for sustainability performance evaluation. An integrated input-output life cycle assessment (LCA) and multi criteria decision making (MCDM) approach is employed. The US manufacturing sectors’ LCA results are used in conjunction with the proposed MCDM framework to perform the eco-efficiency evaluation of 276 US manufacturing sectors. Five environmental impact categories are considered as the negative factors, namely: greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, water withdrawal, hazardous waste generation and toxic releases into air and the economic output of each manufacturing sector is considered to be the positive output. To study the overall impact of different weighting strategies; twenty weighting scenarios are designed. Five pairs of weights considered for the overall economic versus environmental impacts along with four specific weighting strategies based on Harvard, SAB, EPP and Equal weighting for each pair. According to the results of the statistical analysis, it is concluded that the weighing strategies applied to the overall environmental impacts and economic outputs cause statistically significant differences in the eco-efficiency scores.

Date: 2016
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