MSNBC aired a program about Corporate Social Responsibility this evening. “The Responsibility Revolution” was an installment of the Business of Innovation series. Interesting, if a bit choppy, it airs again at midnight tonight ET, and a number of other dates/times in Europe and Asia. See the schedule.
There is also a green cable channel called planet green.
According to a nice, brief piece by Heiner Müller-Merbach in Omega entitled “The Interdisciplinary Generalist”, being interdisciplinary is an “old” but “often forgotten” virtue of OR/MS. He writes:
The rationality behind the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to problems is simply that problems in general are not ordered according to the scientific disciplines; instead, most real problems (at least the major and more complex ones) have at the same time physical, chemical, technical, economic, legal, social, ethical aspects etc.
Somewhat obvious, and somewhat generalizable beyond OR/MS, but at the same time, it seems, somewhat understated within the field, especially at a time when interdisciplinary institutes are continually forming. (Google “interdisciplinary institute” to get a sense. In the sustainability realm, see the article “A Threat So Big, Academics Try Collaboration,” NY Times, 12/25/07, probably worth a post of its own.)
Müller-Merbach goes on to describe the content, abilities, and feel, from various disciplines, such as mathematics, science, engineering, fine art, social science, etc., that an interdisciplinary generalist should aspire to obtain.
This factored into an undergraduate project I advised this past semester on analyzing waste flow at the US Coast Guard Academy. Some disciplines, and the content within, that were important for the project group members to handle included:
It was a nice reminder for all involved, that it is not just about the math. (More on this project later…)
Corn-ethanol bio-fuel is another example calling for an interdisciplinary approach. There is debate about whether it makes sense to pursue it. Here are some questions surrounding the issue, followed by the disciplines one would need to help answer them:
Granted, some of these can go beyond the purview of OR/MS, but the majority lie within.
[For one take on #2, see Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol Biofuel Cycle (pdf) by T. W. Patzek.
"The Ethanol Myth" in the October 2006 issue of Consumer Reports also mentions #2. In addition, it hits on #3 with a good discussion about the impact of flexible-fuel vehicle (FFV) credits.]
OR50
This is the 50th anniversary conference of the UK-based OR society. It is being held in York, England from September 9 - 11, 2008. Plans include a plenary debate on sustainability and OR within the conference’s “Agriculture and Natural Resources” stream. That stream is being coordinated by Daniel Sandars and Lluis Pla, both mentioned elsewhere on this site in conjunction with EURO 2007. I have supplied some points to this debate effort. For more information, see the “operational research for the natural resource industries” blog.
Update: The program for or50 (pdf) has been posted.
INFORMS 2008
The April 2008 issue of ORMS Today included a list of 21st century engineering challenges to which OR could contribute. The list included developing a self-sufficient sustainable energy program. (Some of the other entries were improving healthcare in developing countries and in the United States; developing effective counter-terrorism strategies; and using the Internet to improve education in emerging countries. See the article for the complete list.) The report the list is based on, authored by current and former INFORMS presidents, talks about how OR is well suited to handle the sustainable energy challenge, because of its experience with networks, and analysis of trade-offs, to put it briefly. The ORMS Today piece goes on to mention plans for sessions at the 2008 INFORMS meeting, focusing on these challenges.
Note, the following are among the possible subjects to classify one’s abstract submission to the conference: sustainable operations; environment, natural resources and energy; sustainable development; and green design/buildings. The INFORMS meeting will be in Washington, DC from October 12-15, 2008.
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.
Operations research and environmental planning
S. E. Daniela, D. C. Diakoulakib and C. P. Pappis
in European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 102, Issue 2, 16 October 1997, Pages 248-263
Notes: Contains an extensive list of over 100 references. In the 1997 “Environmental Planning” special issue of EJOR.
Interactions between operational research and environmental management
J. M. Bloemhof-Ruwaarda, P. van Beekb, L. Hordijka and L. N. Van Wassenhove
in European Journal of Operational Research Volume 85, Issue 2, 7 September 1995, Pages 229-243 [64 citations as of 5/22/08]
MCDA and Energy Planning
D. Diakoulaki, C. Antunes and A. Gomes Martins
and
Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis and Sustainable Development
G. Munda
both in the book Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis: State of the Art Surveys
see the book’s Springer page
A Primer on Environmental Decision-Making - An Integrative Quantitative Approach
by K. Seip and F. Wenstøp
Notes: This is a textbook. Game theory is the only OR-related technique explicitly mentioned in the table of contents, but it stands to reason that others would be inside. See the Springer page as well as their “Environmental Management” series.
Agricultural sustainable management: a normative approach based on goal programming
S. Elfkih, M.L. Feijoo and C. Romero
in Journal of the Operational Research Society, advance online publication 19 March 2008
Application of multi-criteria decision making to sustainable energy planning—A review
S. D. Pohekar and M. Ramachandran
in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
Volume 8, Issue 4, August 2004, Pages 365-381
Author Keywords: Multi-objective optimization; Multi-criteria decision making; Decision support systems; Sustainable energy planning
Notes: The applicability of multi-criteria methods to sustainability is a logical consequence of the struggle between economic and environmental priorities. The authors of this paper discuss this briefly before reviewing MCDM (and multi-objective optimization) methodology and its usage in energy planning including renewables. Some of the MCDM approaches described are the weighted sum method, AHP, PROMETHEE, and ELECTRE. Numerous references on the application of MCDM to the following six areas are detailed:
1 - renewable energy planning (given existing renewable energy options)
2 - energy resource allocation
3 - building energy management
4 - transportation energy management
5 - planning for energy projects (renewable ones - site selection, technology selection, …)
6 - electric utility planning
The authors’ literature survey indicates that multi-objective optimization is the most commonly used technique in these areas followed by the AHP. Renewable energy planning dominates the application areas. A pre- and post-1990 split of the references shows that MCDM has gained ground on multi-objective from the first period to the second. In all the paper contains little analysis, serving primarily as a classification of references using MCDM methodology on sustainability areas. The long list of references makes it clear that while some of this work can be found in OR journals (mainly EJOR, cf. refs [31], [32], and [38]), most of it is showing up in energy and environmental journals.
