More references: reverse logistics, waste flow, CO2 emissions, …

Here are some more references loosely organized by topic (reverse logistics, waste flow, CO2 emissions tax/trading), plus mention of an old special issue (a 2001 OR Spectrum). The plan is to ultimately get the References page organized by topic.

• Reverse logistics
  • Reverse Logistics: Quantitative Models for Closed-Loop Supply Chains
    Dekker, Rommert, Moritz Fleischmann, Karl Inderfurth, Luk N. Van Wassenhove, eds.
    2004. Springer-Verlag, New York. 436 pp. $109.00.
    Notes There is a review of this book in Interfaces, looks like it might be useful.
  • The Impact of Product Recovery on Logistics Network Design
    M Fleischmann, P Beullens, JM Bloemhof-Ruwaard in Production and Operations Management, 2001
    Notes: Looks good, about facility location problem, has a large formulation then runs the model on a real example of copier recovery. Mine its references. 67 citations. Found the Jenkins (see below) in it.
• Waste Flow (classic)
  • Parametric Mixed Integer Programming: An Application to Solid Waste Management
    Larry Jenkins in Management Science Vol. 28, No. 11, Nov., 1982, pp. 1270-1284
    Notes: Referred to in Fleishmann paper above, it’s old (classic?), has some good references of its own within, and does mention alternate streams for some waste (such as using as a “substitute for coal in cement plants and thermal electric generating stations. It is called refuse-derived-fuel (RDF).”). The main slant of the paper, though, is methodological - a method for sensitivity analysis in MILPs. I listed 2 refs from within below, could look through the others as well.
  • An Analysis of Solid Waste Transportation and Disposal Alternatives
    by HARVEY, D. J. AND O’FLAHERTY, T. G. in INFOR, Vol. 11 (1973), pp. 187-200.
    Notes: Referred to in Jenkins paper above, looks interesting but am having trouble finding it (cga lib doesn’t have the journal).
  • Mathematical Analysis of Solid Waste Collection
    by MARKS, D. H. AND LIEBMAN, J. C., Bureau of Solid Waste Management, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, D.C., 1970.
    Notes: Referred to in Jenkins
• CO2 emissions tax/trading (see this previous post on carbon and RGGI)
  • Profit-maximizing R&D in response to a random carbon tax
    by E Baker, E Shittu in Resource and Energy Economics,, 2006
    Notes: There was a corresponding talk in the INFORMS 2007 program.
  • Analyzing the Long-run Impact of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on the Maryland Power Sector: Oligopoly Analysis
    by Chen, Yihsu; Burtraw, Dallas; Hobbs, Benjamin F.; Kim, Soora; Palmer, Karen; Paul, Anthony; Gabriel, Steve (UMd.);
    Power Engineering Society General Meeting, 24-28 June 2007 Page(s):1 - 8
    Notes: Abstract available here, also presented at INFORMS 2007. This search yields even more related papers. Co-author Hobbs has a large number of papers that could probably be added to the overall references as well.
• The February 2001 issue of OR Spectrum covered environmental management. See table of contents. Here a few of the paper titles/authors:
  • Environment-oriented project scheduling for the dismantling of buildings
    by Frank Schultmann and Otto Rentz
  • OLAF – A general modeling system to evaluate and optimize the location of an air polluting facility
    by Jörg Fliege
  • Life cycle activity analysis: logistics and environmental policies for bottled water in Portugal Life Cycle Activity Analysis
    by Fausto Freire, Sten Thore and Paulo Ferrao

Federal Environmental Symposium, including Green OR at the USPS

I attended the US Federal Environmental Symposium East in Bethesda, MD last week. This meeting brought together US government agency representatives to discuss programs, plans, analysis, etc. each has been undertaking surrounding sustainability issues. I heard some good talks from members of the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency, Office of the Federal Environmental Executive (OFEE), National Institutes of Health (the symposium host), and many others. The conference had a strong policy slant; a key focus was how to meet the sustainability goals of Executive Order 13423. (Scroll all the way down for more on E.O. 13423.)

One talk having some good OR/MS content was “U.S. Postal Service Environmental Impact from Reductions in Highway Transportation: Highway Corridor Analytic Program (HCAP)” by Edward (EJ) Matto of IBM and Wayne Corey from the US Postal Service. The talk was about an optimization model geared towards minimizing the cost of the long-haul (think inter-city) postal runs. Previously these trucks were only 60% full on average, so overhauling the routes to produce fuller trucks would lead to fewer runs, hence lower costs. The problem is modeled as a vehicle-routing problem with pickups and deliveries (VRP/PD) using mixed-integer programming. The results have helped save the USPS $5 million annually.

EJ Matto was kind enough to take a number of questions from me after the talk, despite my question about junk mail (see below) during the regular Q & A. One of the interesting (and possibly familiar to some) points he made was that the USPS only implemented a small fraction of the routes suggested by the model. In part this was because doing more would lead to too large of a disruption of the current system. The model results led to incremental changes in the routing, not a wholesale revision of it. Along the same lines, the model starts with existing routes and some potential new ones (generated by heuristics), rather than starting from scratch.

This topic seemed familiar to me, and it turns out a paper on this was published in Interfaces (Pajunas, Matto, Trick, and Zuluaga, “Optimizing Highway Transportation at the United States Postal Service”, Vol 37(6), Nov-Dec 2007). See that for more information about the model. One difference between the paper and the talk was a slide on the environmental benefits of implementation of the results, such as reduced emissions of CO2, NOx, CO, VOCs, PM10 (particulate matters). This registered with the audience. It has probably often been the case that implementation of a good cost-saving OR model has led to environmental side benefits. Fewer miles driven translates to less fuel used, and less pollution. But of course, “efficiency” does not always benefit the environment, especially when environmental capital is not accounted for. Central to the corporate social responsibility movement is the notion of “internalizing the externalities”. The criticism that has often been waged is that pollution, natural resource depletion, and the like traditionally have not been accounted for properly in the cost of doing business. They are treated as externalities. This appears to be changing somewhat nowadays.

As I alluded to above, I asked about the USPS’s view of junk mail given its environmental impact but figuring it was a huge source of income. I received a very lengthy answer from the USPS speaker along with another audience member who also works there. They talked about how the USPS works with direct mailers to reduce the environmental footprint of the “bulk business mail” (that’s the term they use), which makes up 87% of their revenue. They also described a number of sustainability initiatives the USPS is taking on, one of which is cradle-to-cradle certification (see “USPS Goes Cradle to Cradle” at treehugger.com).

Most forms of doing business are going to take a toll on the environment, even ones like the USPS that don’t directly involve manufacturing. It is a problem many companies have to face as they strive to be more environmentally responsible. So what many do is to try to mitigate the impacts of an inherently environmentally deleterious business, and also work hard to be greener in other ways, such as with recycling, alternative fuel vehicles, energy efficiency, etc.

To see more about the efforts of the USPS, go to their greener choices page. (Follow the links on the page to reduce the amount of “bulk business mail” you receive.)

The Center for a New American Dream website has information about a “Do Not Junk” registry patterned after the “Do Not Call” one and also has steps you can take to reduce your own junk mail.

Getting back to Executive Order 13423, from the OFEE site:

On January 24th, 2007, President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13423, “Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management.” The order sets goals in the areas of energy efficiency, acquisition, renewable energy, toxics reductions, recycling, sustainable buildings, electronics stewardship, fleets, and water conservation.

Some of the goals include:

VEHICLES: Increase purchase of alternative fuel, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles when commercially available.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY: Reduce energy intensity by 3 % annually through 2015 or by 30% by 2015.

GREENHOUSE GASES: By reducing energy intensity by 3% annually or 30% by 2015, reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

(src: E.O. 13423 Fact Sheet (pdf))

Update: A June 25 Washington Post story discusses US Presidential candidates’ energy/environment plans and also refers to EO 13423.

Green Operations Management

A number of articles discuss environmental issues in operations management. Here are a few:

Environmental and Operations Management Face the Future
L.C. Angell
in Decision Line, May 1999
Notes: This brief article from 1999 includes a table listing special journal issues on environmental operations management and related areas. I am listing these and some others I have found in a separate post.

Integrating environmental issues into the mainstream: an agenda for research in operations management
L.C. Angell and R.D. Klassen
in Journal of Operations Management, Volume 17, Issue 5, August 1999, Pages 575-598
Notes: Same author as above. For what it’s worth, Scholar reports 165 citations as of May 5, 2008. If nothing else, given that these references are a bit old, mine the citing papers to find more recent work.

‘Green’ value chain practices in the furniture industry
R. B. Handfield, S. V. Waltonb, L. K. Seegersc and S. A. Melnyka
in Journal of Operations Management, Volume 15, Issue 4, November 1997, Pages 293-315

Environmental operations management: An opportunity for improvement
M. Gupta and K. Sharma
in Production and Inventory Management Journal, Volume 37, 1996

The sustainability debate
A. Wilkinson, M. Hill, and P. Gollan
in International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 2001, Vol. 21, Issue 12, 1492 – 1502

See also the post on special journal issues.

Special Issues

The following are special journal issues covering some aspect of the sustainability/operations research intersection :

Green Operations, Production & Operations Monthly (OM newsletter), April 2007, Vol. 2, No. 1.

Closed-Loop Supply Chains: Practice and Potential, Interfaces, November-December 2003. I wrote about this back in July 2007.

Environmental Management, OR Spectrum February 2001. See table of contents.

Sustainable Business, Interfaces, May-June 2000, Vol. 30, No. 3
Notes: Contains a number of practical articles. Also, I was impressed to see an article by cradle-to-cradlers McDonough and Braungart in an OR journal. There is even an article on “the natural step” philosophy. More on this issue soon…

Environmental Planning, EJOR, Vol. 121, no. 2, March 2000, eds. S. Salhi and B. Boffey.

The Impact of Environmental Pressures on Operations Management, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 2000; Vol. 20, Iss. 2, ed. L.C. Angell.

Operations Issues in Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing, Computers and Industrial Engineering, Vol. 36 No. 4, Sep 1999, ed. M. Gupta (mentioned in this post), looks good, has the ROTEB and Gungor/Gupta survey articles that were previously listed in references.

Environmental Planning, EJOR, Vol. 102, no. 2, Pages 247-403, 16 October 1997, ed. C.P. Pappis, papers presented at the EURO Summer Institute on Environmental Planning.

Upcoming issues
Closed-Loop Supply Chains, EJOR, see post concerning this issue.
Update: It’s out. Navigate to this page and scroll to the bottom.

Ethics and Operations Research, Omega, slated for late 2009, see post on this one.

New references

Dynamics of supply chain networks with corporate social responsibility through integrated environmental decision-making
Jose M. Cruz
in European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 184, Issue 3, Pages 817-1190 (1 February 2008 ) Pages 1005-1031

A methodology for assessing eco-efficiency in logistics networks
J. Quariguasi Frota Neto, G. Walther, J. Bloemhof, J.A.E.E. van Nunen and T. Spengler
in European Journal of Operational Research, in press, available online as of October 2007
Notes: Studies the efficient frontier between environmental and business concerns.

A multiple objective model to deal with economy-energy-environment interactions
C. Oliveira and C.H. Antunes
in European Journal of Operational Research, 153 (2), p.370-385, Mar 2004

Green Informants

Should electronics manufacturers test competitor’s products for hazardous materials compliance? This question is investigated in the paper Green Production through Competitive Testing by E. Plambeck and T.A. Taylor, which can be found here. The rationale would be that a detected violation disclosed to regulators could then lead to blockage of the competitor’s products. The paper models this scenario from an economics angle and includes results from numerical experiments. Added to References.

Fuel Economy Trading

Ford has a Business Systems Analytics Group devoted to business modeling and OR. OR/MS Today had a roundtable profile of the group in its August 2007 issue. The article mentions a project in experimental economics having to do with corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. At present, the US Congress is trying to pass an energy bill with the first major increase in CAFE standards (35 miles per gallon by 2020) since 1975.

According to the profile, small fuel-efficient cars and large cars are typically run as two separate businesses. Small cars are less profitable but make it possible for the company to meet CAFE standards. In a sense, their production subsidizes that of the large cars. This subsidy was not represented in company financial systems. The project involved an internal trading scheme by which large cars paid a “tax” effectively transferring “profits” to the small cars. This calls to mind other trading schemes such as those for carbon emissions, a subject taken up by a session at EURO 2007.

References added…

C.J. Corbett and S. Muthulingam, Adoption of Voluntary Environmental Standards: The Role of Signaling and Intrinsic Benefits in the Diffusion of the LEED Green Building Standards, August 2007.
Notes: Includes LEED stats and analysis.

C.J. Corbett and R.D. Klassen, Extending the Horizons: Environmental Excellence as Key to Improving Operations, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 8(1): 5-22. Winter 2006.

C. Savaskan, S. Bhattacharya, and L. Van Wassenhove, Closed-Loop Supply Chain Models with Product Remanufacturing, Management Science, 2004 (50/2).

A. Sbihi and R.W. Eglese, Combinatorial Optimization and Green Logistics, 4OR: A Quarterly Journal of Operations Research, vol 5(2), pp 99-116, 2007.

A. Weintraub, C. Romero, T. Bjørndal, and R. Epstein (Eds.), Handbook of Operations Research in Natural Resources (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science), Springer, 2007.
Notes: The primary focus is not sustainability, but environmental impacts of the use of natural resources appear to be considered in parts. See the Springer page for more information.

See the References page for the complete list.

Waste Flow Optimization

Waste flow optimization can be formulated as a linear program wherein the decision variables represent how much of a given type of waste to transport to a given waste handling area. Electronics waste, for example, can be sent to landfill, to a remanufacturing/refurbishing location, or to a hazardous waste handling facility. The objective can be to maximize profit. Some flows may cost money, such as transporting solid waste to a landfill. Others may earn money, such as the recycling of aluminum. Emissions, energy usage, and other environmental factors can be incorporated into the objective function. Both existing waste handling procedures and hypothetical ones can be modeled, with solutions pointing to the optimal mix. Constraints can include flow balances, resource limitations, and legal or policy quotas (e.g. recycling) among others.

Along these lines, the paper Optimizing Waste Flows in the OSU Network by C. Naumoff, listed on the References page, contains a nice treatment of waste flow optimization on a university campus. Taking on an industrial ecology point of view emphasizing the notion of closed-loop systems, this paper could serve as good model for one interested in conducting a similar study on his/her own campus. See also the Center for Resilience at OSU (Ohio State University).

References Updated Again

There is now a summary of the Efficiency Versus Sustainability in Dynamic Decision Making book on the References page. In addition, several new references have been listed there.