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Multi-actor multi-criteria sustainability assessment framework for energy and industrial systems in life cycle perspective under uncertainties. Part 2: improved extension theory

  • LIFE CYCLE SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT
  • Published:
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

The concept of sustainability and sustainable development has been widely incorporated in energy and industrial systems. This paper is the second part of a two-paper series dealing with multi-actor multi-criteria sustainability assessment of alternative energy and industrial systems in life cycle perspective under uncertainties.

Methods

The criteria system including four macroscopic aspects (environmental, safety, social and economic aspects) has been developed for sustainability assessment of energy and industrial systems. An improved extension theory which can address interval decision-making matrix has been developed for determining the sustainability degree of the energy and industrial systems.

Results and discussion

The weights of the criteria for sustainability assessment are the first part of the two-paper series. An illustrative case has been studied by the proposed multi-criteria decision-making method, and the sustainability of six alternative options for the production of a 1-t product was investigated. The sustainability degree of these six alternative options can be determined by the proposed method.

Conclusions and perspectives

A methodology for multi-actor multi-criteria sustainability assessment of energy and industrial options has been developed in this study, the traditional extension theory has been modified to deal with the uncertainty problems and the proposed method can rank the alternative energy and industrial systems with the decision-making matrix in which the data of the alternatives with respect to the evaluation criteria are intervals. In the improved extension theory, sustainability has been dived into five grades: excellent, good, satisfied, barely adequate and fail. According to the method for calculating the weights of the criteria for sustainability assessment proposed in part 1, these weights were used to calculate the integrated dependent degree which is a measure of what degree an alternative belongs to the classical fields. An optimal programming model for maximizing the satisfied degree has been developed to rank the sustainability sequence of the alternative options and determine the sustainability degree of each alternative.

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Abbreviations

AJ:

Added jobs

AP:

Acidification potential

E:

The frequency of dangerous incident

GWP:

Global warming potential

IC:

Investment cost

ILC:

Impact on local culture

IRR:

Internal rate of return

L:

The possibility of accident

LCS:

Life cycle safety

NPV:

Net present value

PCOP:

Photochemical oxidation potential

a ij :

The lower bound of scenario i (i = 1,2,…,m) with respect to indicator c j (j = 1,2,…,n)

a xj :

Lower bound of v xj

α :

The interval-converting coefficient

b ij :

The upper bound of scenario i (i = 1,2,…,m) with respect to indicator c j (j = 1,2,…,n)

b xj :

Upper bound of v xj

ICC :

Interval-converting coefficient

k id :

The integrated dependent degree of the (i)th matter element to grade t

\( {k}_{id}^L \) :

The lower bound of the integrated dependent degree of scenario i to the grade d

\( {k}_{id}^U \) :

The upper bound of the integrated dependent degree of scenario i to the grade d

N d :

The divided grade d

R d :

The classical domain

N x :

The grade of the matter element for assessment

R x :

The matter element for assessment

R P :

Segment field

U :

A space of objects

x :

A matter element

v xj :

The value of x with respect to the characteristic c j

v pj :

The union set of the values with respect to the characteristic c j in all grades

w j :

The weight of the characteristic (indicator) j

z pd :

A binary variable; it represents that the matter element p belongs to the grade t when z pd equals 1; on the contrary, it represents that the matter element p does not belong to the grade t when z pd equals 0.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hongkong Polytechnic University, Hongkong SAR, China

    Jingzheng Ren

  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China

    Xusheng Ren

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disaster, School of Geography and Remote Sensing, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Hanwei Liang & Liang Dong

  4. CML, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Liang Dong

  5. Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Onogawa 16-2, Tsukuba-City, Ibaraki, 305-8506, Japan

    Liang Dong

  6. School of Economics and Management, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Long Zhang

  7. College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, No.1239, Siping road, Shanghai, China

    Xiao Luo

  8. Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute, No. 1111, North Zhongshan road, Shanghai, China

    Xiao Luo

  9. Department of Environmental and Business Economics, University of Southern Denmark, Niels Bohrs Vej, 96700, Esbjerg, Denmark

    Yingkui Yang

  10. State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Zhiqiu Gao

Authors
  1. Jingzheng Ren
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  2. Xusheng Ren
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  3. Hanwei Liang
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  4. Liang Dong
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  5. Long Zhang
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  6. Xiao Luo
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  7. Yingkui Yang
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  8. Zhiqiu Gao
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jingzheng Ren or Zhiqiu Gao.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Adisa Azapagic

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Ren, J., Ren, X., Liang, H. et al. Multi-actor multi-criteria sustainability assessment framework for energy and industrial systems in life cycle perspective under uncertainties. Part 2: improved extension theory. Int J Life Cycle Assess 22, 1406–1417 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-016-1252-0

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