About

This site has information about the intersection of operations research (OR) with sustainability areas such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, waste flow, green products and supply chains, etc. There is work being done at this intersection, which we call “green OR”, but this page was started because there was no centralized source of information for it.

Among the main purposes of this site are:

1. to communicate OR’s potential to contribute to sustainability challenges,
2. to focus those in the OR world towards this kind of work, and
3. to attract students to green OR who may be quantitatively-inclined and interested in sustainability but not sure which path to take.

Occassionally, tangential topics (e.g. ethics in OR) or topics specific to only one of the areas may be mentioned.

Some of the posts are terse, mainly consisting of a lead that one could follow up on. Over time, a goal of this site is to follow up on some of the leads and give a brief synopsis of the work being done.

Another ongoing goal is to include examples of applications in these sustainability areas formulated as OR problems. Preferably, these will be real-world examples. See also the “What is Operations Research?” and Sustainability pages.

All posts are written by Ian Frommer unless otherwise noted. Ian Frommer is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy* in New London, CT with interests in energy and the environment. He is also an Operations Research consultant in the electric power industry, working on power portfolio optimization with renewable energy and emissions considerations, short- and long-term load forecasting, and other projects. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland, and his A.B. from Harvard College, where he majored in Astronomy & Physics.

To contribute material or an idea for a post, send an email to:

* The views and opinions expressed on this blog represent those of the author and are not to be construed as reflecting the views, official policy or position of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, or any other office or agency of the U.S. Government.