A green supplier evaluation system based on a new multi-criteria sorting method: VIKORSORT

Abstract

Depleting natural resources and limited amount of landfill areas have forced many governments to impose stricter measures on environmental performance. In order to comply with those measures and to have a better environmental image, companies are investing heavily in environmental, social and economic responsibility issues. Moreover, they continuously track the environmental performance of their suppliers. Many green supplier evaluation and ranking methodologies were proposed in the literature in order to assist companies in the environmental performance evaluation of suppliers. However, the number of studies on the sorting of suppliers based on environmental criteria is very limited. In this study, we fill this research gap by proposing a novel VIKOR-based green supplier sorting methodology called VIKORSORT. This methodology evaluates the environmental performance of suppliers and sorts them into the predefined ordered classes. The proposed methodology can easily be embedded into an expert system which can suggest a suitable green supplier development program for each class. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd