Life cycle aggregated sustainability index for the prioritization of industrial systems under data uncertainties

Abstract

This study aims at developing a generic method for measuring the sustainability of industrial systems and prioritizing industrial systems under uncertainties. The interval preference relation based goal programming model which can address vagueness and ambiguity existing in human's judgments was employed to determine the weights of the criteria for life cycle sustainability assessment. A life cycle aggregated sustainability index which incorporates both the data of industrial systems with respect to the evaluation criteria and the weights of the criteria was developed to prioritize the industrial systems. An illustrative case including four electricity generation systems were studied by the proposed method, and the results were also validated by another four multi-criteria decision making methods. The results reveal that the developed life cycle aggregated sustainability index can effectively prioritizing industrial systems under data uncertainties.