Altea Lorenzo-Arribas, Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland

Andrea Bonfiglioli, Edinburgh Napier University

Dr. Joao Quariguasi Frota Net, Manchester University

*Dr. Miles Weaver, Edinburgh Napier University

* Presentation lead

E: m.weaver@napier.ac.uk

T: @DrMilesWeaver

OR for Sustainability: Assessing Contribution, Concepts and Research Issues

Purpose of presentation

To assess OR contribution and concepts used to address the “grand challenge” of sustainability.

This presentation presents some preliminary findings from:

– Part A: Systematic literature review of ABS ranked journals in OR classified by:

• Sustainability dimension (i.e. economic, social, environmental and governance)

• OR concepts and tools applied

– Part B: the emerging themes identified at a round-table discussion and pilot questionnaire of OR society members attending the YOR18

– Research and practical implications for the OR community to address this ‘grand challenge’ – OR for Embedded Sustainability

Sustainability as a ‘concept’ and ‘ground’ for applying OR“meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland 1987; Sanders, 2012)

Adapted from: Laszlo (2008)

Upstream(i.e. resource consumption)

OperationsDownstream(i.e. pollutant emissions)

• Environmental impacts - Energy conservation - Water and solid waste - Air emissions - Toxic materials

• Social impacts - Human rights - Community involvement

• Economic impacts - Jobs, economic growth - Tax base

• Environmental impacts - CO2, NO2 emissions

- Fossil fuel, renewables

• Social impacts - Worker health and safety - Employability, diversity - Community integration

• Economic impacts - Jobs, economic growth - Tax base

• Environmental impacts - Durability - Energy use - Recycling, remanufacture

• Social impacts• - Exposure to toxics - Customer health & safety

- Ergonomics

• Economic impacts - Meeting unmet societal needs - Partnerships to support schools, etc.

Embedding sustainability into strategy and practice: begins with understanding the triple bottom line approach and capability development

• Triple bottom line approach (Elkington, 1998)

Hart (2005) proposed:

– One of the most important drivers of new resources and capability development for firms will be the constraints and challenges posed by the natural environment

– Competitive advantage, is to be rooted in capabilities that facilitate environmentally sustainable activity

– It appears inevitable that business (markets) will be constrained by and dependent upon ecosystems (nature).

A strategic role for OR and addressing “grand challenges”

• OR has been slow to define and claim a strategic role for OR (Bell, 1998)– May help explain infancy and extent of

research on sustainability issues?– Community should discuss OR as a strategic

asset– Exciting future to provide a vision

• Lane (2010) argues, so do we, that OR research has considerable advantages to deal with strategic issues and grand challenges

Need to make connections between OR and sustainability literature• White et al., (2009) the ‘OR’ label appears to have a low profile in the

discourse and appropriate methodologies and methods in sustainability

• Midgley and Reynolds (2004) suggested an agenda for systems/OR research– OR has considerable scope to address to address sustainability issues,

citing three essential characteristics of OR:• OR has a systems orientation

– i.e. boundary setting – who ‘controls’ / ‘governs’ a supply chain? How are ‘relationships’ forged and managed?

• Being of an interdisciplinary nature • Being explicitly purposeful

• Lack of concentration of research activity (i.e. conference streams, special interest group, special issues in OR journals) except narrower streams (e.g. greening, CLSCM)

A. Making connections: Review of OR and sustainability literature

• Builds upon and extends a keynote paper presented at YOR18 on: Embedding Sustainability into Strategy: An Operations Research Society Perspective

• Systematic literature review of the 57 ABS 2010 ranked journals (29 journals returned results) reviewed under the category of OR/MS research (omitting 1* journals)

– Search terms established in Ashby et al., (2013) keywords plus (operation* research + (sustainability + sustainable development)

– 172 papers included in the review, sorted and consolidated – Categorised by sustainability dimension (i.e. economic, social, environmental and

governance)

B. Emerging themes from preliminary questionnaire and round-table at YOR18 held at Exeter University (April 2013)

• Purpose: to inform a wider survey aimed at OR Society members

• Focus group methodology: o Personally administered semi-structured questionnaireo Roundtable covering the topics included in the questionnaire and

adequacy of questions.o 12 respondents/participants

• Representatives from research community (63.64%) and OR practitioners (36.36%). Note: audience ‘Young to OR’.

• 75% of respondents had NO previous involvement in sustainability issues

A. Starting point for the literature review …Using Ashby et al., (2012) Search terms

Boundary Search terms

No of papers in operations and supply journals

noted in Ashby et al., (2012)

No of papers in IAOR

No of papers in OR society

specific journals

Organisational

Sustainability16

60 8Sustainable development* 33 4Corporate social responsibility 8 2 0Social sustainability 7 4 0Life Cycle analysis (LCA) 3 8 1

Supply

Green supply chains 35 15 1Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM)

14 1 0

Closed loop supply chains 7 23 1Integrated supply chain 1 10 0

* The term sustainable development was searched with sustainability by Ashby et al., (2012). For the purposes of this review the terms are split to ensure that no papers are omitted from the search.

A. No. of papers per ABS ranked journal title using pre-defined search terms

Europ

ean

Jour

nal o

f Ope

ratio

nal R

esea

rch

(3)

Group

Dec

ision

and

Neg

otiat

ion (3

)

Jour

nal o

f Bus

iness

Log

istics

(2)

Jour

nal o

f the

Ope

ratio

nal R

esea

rch

Societ

y (3

)

Annals

of O

pera

tions

Res

earc

h (2

)

Inte

rnat

ional

Jour

nal o

f Pro

duct

ion E

cono

mics

(3)

Jour

nal o

f Opt

imiza

tion

Theor

y an

d App

licat

ions

(2)

Omeg

a (3

)

Inte

rface

s (2

)

Syste

m D

ynam

ics R

eview

(2)

Syste

ms

Resea

rch

and

Behav

ioral

Scienc

e (2

)

Jour

nal o

f Con

stru

ction

Eng

ineer

ing a

nd M

anag

emen

t (2)

Man

ufac

turin

g & S

ervic

e Ope

ratio

ns M

anag

emen

t (3)

Projec

t Man

agem

ent J

ourn

al (2

)

Compu

ters

& In

dust

rial E

ngine

ering

(2)

Inte

rnat

ional

Jour

nal o

f Pro

duct

ion R

esea

rch

(3)

Inte

rnat

ional

Trans

actio

ns in

Ope

ratio

nal R

esea

rch

(2)

IEEE T

rans

actio

ns o

n Eng

ineer

ing M

anag

emen

t (3)

Inte

rnat

ional

Jour

nal o

f Phy

sical

Distrib

ution

& L

ogist

ics M

anag

emen

t (2)

Inte

rnat

ional

Jour

nal o

f Pro

ject M

anag

emen

t (2)

Inte

rnat

ional

Jour

nal o

f Tec

hnolo

gy M

anag

emen

t (2)

Reliab

ility

Engine

ering

& S

yste

m S

afet

y (3

)

The In

tern

ation

al Jo

urna

l of L

ogist

ics M

anag

emen

t (2)

Total

Quality

Man

agem

ent &

Bus

iness

Exc

ellen

ce (2

)

Inte

rnat

ional

Jour

nal o

f Log

istics

: Res

earc

h an

d App

licat

ions

(2)

Jour

nal o

f App

lied

Statis

tics

(2)

Jour

nal o

f Man

ufac

turin

g Tec

hnolo

gy M

anag

emen

t (2)

Jour

nal o

f Sch

eduli

ng (3

)

Man

agem

ent S

cienc

e (4

)0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

American led 38%

EU led 62%

Using SCImago's website

A. No. of OR reviewed papers per year (all search terms)

Un

itl M

arc

h!

B. Perception and importance of sustainability in focus-group sample

Perception Importance

Despite a 33.33% of the respondents considering it just relatively important or not important, all of the participants could picture themselves as being involved in sustainability projects in the future.

In it

s inf

ancy

Estab

lishe

d an

d ac

cept

ed

Outda

ted

Irrele

vant

Other

0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00

70.00

80.00

66.67

16.67

0.00 0.00

8.33

Fre

qu

ency

(%

)

0.00

5.00

10.00

15.00

20.00

25.00

30.00

35.00

8.33333333333333

25

33.3333333333333

8.33333333333333

16.6666666666667

Fre

qu

ency

(%

)

Classification of OR literature and focus group by sustainability sphere

A. Within OR literature

Classification of OR literature by sustainability sphere

Total no of instances in sample

Percentage Terms

Sum of Environmental 152 88.4%

Sum of Social 120 69.8%

Social + Environmental 83 48.3%

Sum of Governance 32 18.6%

Governance + Social 0 0%

Governance + Environmental

3 1.7%

ALL 29 16.9%

B. From focus group respondents

Social Economic Environmental0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

40.0

45.0

26.9

30.8

42.3

Fre

qu

ency

(%

)

A. Classification concept/tool per instancein OR literature

Linea

r / N

onlin

ear p

rogr

amm

ing

Lifec

ycle

Asses

smen

t

Exper

t Sys

tem

s

Mult

i Crit

eria

Decisi

on M

aking

Heuris

tics

/ Gen

etic

Algorit

hm

Syste

m D

ynam

ics

Stoch

astic

Ana

lysis

Soft O

R / Sys

tem

s Thin

king

Fuzzy

Dec

ision

Mak

ing

Mult

i Obje

ctive

Dec

ision

Mak

ing

Game

Theor

y / B

usine

ss G

ames

AHP (Ana

lytica

l Hier

arch

y Pro

cess

)

Mon

te C

arlo

Mult

i Attr

ibute

Dec

ision

Ana

lysis

Data

Envelo

pmen

t Ana

lysis

/ DEA

Mult

i Age

nt S

imula

tion

Mod

elling

Sprea

dshe

et S

imula

tion

Bayes

ian A

nalys

is

Single

Criter

ion

Discre

te E

vent

Sim

ulatio

n

Equilib

rium

Mod

el

AEZ Opt

imisa

tion

Exerg

oeco

nom

ics0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

30%28% 28%

27%

24%

20% 20%18% 17%

14% 14%

9% 9%8% 8%

5% 5% 5% 5% 4%3%

1% 1%

B. Focus group responses to methodologies associated to Sustainability

TechniquesA. Lit.

ReviewB. Focus

group

Simulation 44.7% 35.7%

Programming 29.7% 21.4%

Soft OR 18.0% 21.4%

Multi Criteria Analysis

9.3% - 26.7%

14.3%

Stochastic Models

19.8% 7.1%

NB. The Literature review is % of no. of instances.

Simula

tion

Progr

amm

ing

Soft M

etho

ds

Mult

i Crit

eria

Analys

is

Stoch

astic

Mod

els0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

40.0

35.7

21.4 21.4

14.3

7.1

Res

po

nd

ents

(%

)

B. Making connections between OR and sustainability: Findings from the round-table

Emerging themes from focus group

o Sustainability is a grand challenge, a wicked problem

o Lack of consensus on how to measure performance of sustainability

o Great focus of the OR community on tools rather than solutions to address sustainability issues

o Idea to generate interest in the OR community: to submit a problem for the profession to solve?

o Social aspects of sustainability are already being tackled by other professions (psychologists, sociologists) but have not been properly incorporated in the OR agenda

o Sustainability is for everybody but some clarity on OR concepts/tools application & utility might be useful (particularly for the social dimension)

Research issues and implications:What next? (I)

Systematic literature review and survey of ORS members:

1. How has sustainability been represented in OR/systems research to date?– Interest / perception of sustainability within OR community &

compared with other disciplines – Importance / relevance between European Vs. American led

journals– Contribution from OR community & issues in measuring

performance in terms of sustainability– Clarity and consensus building around a definition for ‘embedded

sustainability’ (rather than ‘sustainable development’?)

Research issues and implications:What next? (II)

Systematic literature review and survey of ORS members:

2. What are the key similarities and differences in focus and findings/outputs?

– Balance of studies between the triple-bottom line dimensions (i.e. dominance on ‘environmental issues’)

– Investigate the ‘societal dimension’ to establish some clarity around OR purpose

– Explore and extend these dimensions to include “governance” as an emerging themes

– Compared with other disciplines areas (i.e. OM & SCM)

Research issues and implications:What next? (III)Systematic literature review and survey of ORS members:

3. What research methodologies, OR/systems methods and tools have been used, which dominate and why?

– Applicability & Utility of OR tool(s)/concept(s) per dimension (ESEG impact)/category of problem (upstream, operation, downstream)

• Focus on both “hard” and “soft” aspects for different type of problem (i.e. utility of systems thinking and soft OR to structure ‘wicked problems’ noted in focus groups)

4. What contribution can the OR community offer in the future?

– Focus OR minds: on the “The Sustainability Problem” & re-visiting the existing body of knowledge with a ‘sustainability’ lens

– Scoping of the application for OR to address this grand challenge– Demonstrate impact as a discipline in both theory and practice

Archimedes: “There is no limit, just give me somewhere to stand, and I shall move the Earth”

Drachmann (1958, p. 281) as cited in Lane (2010) when discussing OR addressing ‘grand challenges’

… in terms of the future: OR for Embedded Sustainability?

I came to your door as a stranger,

I lived in your house as a guest,

I leave your door as a friend,

My earthRabindranath Tagore,

1st non-European to be awarded a Nobel prize for literature in 1913,

Bengali poet, novelist, musician, playwright.