A green supplier selection and evaluation using multicriteria decision analysis

The problem of supplier selection and evaluation is considered as one of the most critical procedures within a company andhas gathered the attention of scholars, particularly in recent studies. Nevertheless, the importance of includingenvironmental factors to the selection and evaluation of suppliers has received much less attention. Over the last yearsthough, it has become a matter of great concern, mainly due to the diminishing raw material resources, overflowing wastesites, and increasing level of pollution. As many factors should be taken into consideration and the complexity is increasingwhen the environmental dimension is added multicriteria decision analysis is preferred for these kinds of problems. Thispaper presents a new approach where environmental criteria are considered along with the traditional criteria based on thefuzzy UTASTAR method. The fuzzy UTASTAR method is a preference disaggregation approach that can consider the level ofuncertainty in the examining criteria evaluations. Such an approach may offer a new perspective to the problem of greensupplier selection and evaluation and will be incorporated with a dynamic supplier evaluation system. To test the validity ofthe model, the proposed approach is applied in a food industry