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Decision support method for GHG emission management in industries

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Abstract

Keeping temperature rise well below 2 °C is Paris Climate Agreement’s main commitment and corporate-level participation will be crucial to achieve national mitigation targets. Hence, companies should adopt measures that allow them to adapt to upcoming scenarios where low-carbon production is expected to become mandatory and a great competitive advantage. However, mitigation strategies cannot be evaluated without consideration of subjective environmental criteria. Consequently, lack of decision support methodologies for climate change evaluation in industries is a barrier for innovation. Aiming at consideration of non-monetary aspects, we develop a support method that incorporates costs, benefits, opportunities and risks related to climate change in manufacturing industries. First, we compared the most relevant multi-criteria decision analysis methodologies and identified an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as the most suitable for ranking corporate climate change strategies. Then, we collected global analysis criteria from the most important socially responsible investment indices, and climate change scientific studies. To adapt these criteria to the AHP method, each criterion was sorted into benefits, opportunities, costs or risks hierarchies. Proposed method was efficient for assessing long-term subjective criteria and ranking alternatives for GHG emission management in two large manufacturing companies. A sensitivity analysis of the outcome revealed its consistency and flexibility for ranking alternatives and weighting criteria. Finally, the method is not limited to a particular type of industry and it can be adapted to other areas, such as service companies, sanitation or public sector.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Professor Ph.D. Maurício Dziedzic for kindly sharing his knowledge on decision support theory and Graduate Program (Master and Doctorate) in Environmental Management, Universidade Positivo, in Curitiba/Brazil, for providing research facilities to develop this study.

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  1. Graduate Program in Environmental Management (Master and Doctorate), Positivo University, 5300 Professor Pedro Viriato Parigot de Souza Street, Campo Comprido, Curitiba, PR, 81280-330, Brazil

    O. Mistage & P. Bilotta

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  1. O. Mistage
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  2. P. Bilotta
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Correspondence to P. Bilotta.

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Editorial responsibility: Mohamed Fathy Yassin, Ph.D.

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Mistage, O., Bilotta, P. Decision support method for GHG emission management in industries. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 15, 1331–1342 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-017-1505-x

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