Sustainable planning and decision-making model for sugarcane mills considering environmental issues

Area of Science:

• Operations Research
• Environmental Science
• Industrial Engineering

Background:

• Growing concerns about global climate change and carbon emissions drive corporate "carbon footprint" initiatives.
• Carbon taxes are recognized as a potent strategy for mitigating climate change impacts.
• Modeling supply chain networks under carbon tax schemes is an area of increasing research interest.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a sustainable sugarcane supply chain network model that accounts for carbon taxes on industrial and transportation emissions.
• To address the disorganized disposal of by-products from sugarcane mills within an economic and environmental framework.
• To solve a complex, NP-hard location-allocation problem inspired by real-world sugarcane industry challenges.

Main Methods:

• A mixed-integer linear programming model was formulated for the sugarcane supply chain network.
• Metaheuristics including Genetic Algorithm (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA), and Social Engineering Optimizer (SEO), along with hybrid methods (GASA, GASEO), were employed.
• The Taguchi approach was used for tuning algorithm control parameters, followed by one-way ANOVA for performance analysis.

Main Results:

• The study successfully implemented and tested advanced metaheuristic algorithms for optimizing the sustainable sugarcane supply chain.
• The Genetic-Social Engineering Optimizer (GASEO) hybrid algorithm exhibited superior performance compared to other tested methods.
• Parameter tuning via the Taguchi approach and performance evaluation using ANOVA provided robust insights into algorithm efficacy.

Conclusions:

• The proposed sustainable sugarcane supply chain network model effectively integrates carbon tax considerations.
• Advanced metaheuristics, particularly GASEO, offer efficient solutions for complex, NP-hard supply chain optimization problems.
• The research provides a valuable framework for industries aiming to reduce their carbon footprint and improve sustainability.