A fuzzy data envelopment analysis framework for dealing with uncertainty impacts of input–output life cycle assessment models on eco-efficiency assessment

Abstract

The uncertainty in the results of input-output-based life cycle assessment models makes the sustainability performance assessment and ranking a challenging task. Therefore, introducing a new approach, fuzzy data envelopment analysis, is critical; since such a method could make it possible to integrate the uncertainty in the results of the life cycle assessment models into the decision-making for sustainability benchmarking and ranking. In this paper, a fuzzy data envelopment analysis model was coupled with an input-output-based life cycle assessment approach to perform the sustainability performance assessment of the 33 food manufacturing sectors in the United States. Seven environmental impact categories were considered the inputs and the total production amounts were identified as the output category, where each food manufacturing sector was considered a decision-making unit. To apply the proposed approach, the life cycle assessment results were formulated as fuzzy crisp valued-intervals and integrated with fuzzy data envelopment analysis model, thus, sustainability performance indices were quantified. Results indicated that majority (31 out of 33) of the food manufacturing sectors were not found to be efficient, where the overall sustainability performance scores ranged between 0.21 and 1.00 (efficient), and the average sustainability performance was found to be 0.66. To validate the current study's findings, a comparative analysis with the results of a previous work was also performed. The major contribution of the proposed framework is that the effects of uncertainty associated with input-output-based life cycle assessment approaches can be successfully tackled with the proposed Fuzzy DEA framework which can have a great area of application in research and business organizations that use with eco-efficiency as a sustainability performance metric.

Systems Thinking for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: A Review of Recent Developments, Applications, and Future Perspectives

“…A limited number of researchers have focused on the MCDM and integrated expert weighting for sustainable product selection based on LCSA results [60,138,139]. In the literature, applications of MCDM methods combined with LCA results are abundant; however, few studies applied MCDM methods for dealing with multiple criteria, expert judgments, and uncertainties in LCSA [58,140]. To give some examples, Onat et al [23] used a combined application of multi-criteria optimization and an IO-based hybrid LCSA.…”

A Method to Facilitate Uncertainty Analysis in LCAs of Buildings

“…Existing literature on the theoretical foundation of computational structure to undertake uncertainty analysis in LCA is slender [16]. Nonetheless, different techniques exist to analyse uncertainty such as: possibility theory, e.g., [17], fuzzy theory, e.g., [18][19][20], Taylor series expansions, e.g., [21], data quality indicators, e.g., [22,23], expert judgement, e.g., [24][25][26] and practitioners' belief, e.g., [27] or a combination of two or more techniques, e.g., [28,29]. Despite the breadth of available approaches, uncertainty analysis in built environment LCAs still remains largely untouched.…”

Managing the Uncertainty and Accuracy of Life Cycle Assessment Results for the Process of Beverage Bottle Moulding

“…The existing literature on the theoretical foundations of the mathematical computational structure for performing uncertainty analysis in LCA is still hardly practiced [ 32 ]. However, there are various techniques for uncertainty analysis, such as: the theory of possibilities, e.g., [ 33 ], fuzzy theory, e.g., [ 34 , 35 ], data quality indicators, e.g., [ 9 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ] and expert opinions, e.g., [ 36 , 37 ] or a combination of two or more techniques, e.g., [ 20 , 30 , 31 , 38 ]. Despite the wide range of approaches available, the analysis of uncertainty in LCA in the scientific and business process of bottle production remains largely unexplored.…”