Identifying the strategic priorities of the technical factors for the sustainable low carbon industry based on macroeconomic conditions

Abstract

This study aims to find out the strategic priorities of the technical factors to have sustainable low carbon industry. For this purpose, a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is proposed that contains three different stages. First, the economic criteria required for sustainable development and the technical needs of the low carbon industry are defined by making a comprehensive literature review. After that, economic criteria are weighted by using the fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) methodology. Finally, technical factors are ranked with the help of the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach. Moreover, another analysis is also performed by considering fuzzy Vise Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) to evaluate the consistency of the analysis results. The main motivation of this study is to define the primary technical factors to minimize carbon emission problem by proposing a hybrid MCDM model. The findings indicate that research and development for renewable sources has the greatest importance for low-carbon industry. In addition, the analysis results of fuzzy TOPSIS and fuzzy VIKOR are quite similar. This situation demonstrates the consistency and coherency of the ranking results. Hence, it is recommended that countries should mainly give importance to the research and development investments so that the costs of renewable energy problems can be minimized. This situation can attract the attentions of the companies to invest in these projects. In this way, it will be possible to use a cleaner energy in industrial production.