A qualitative multi-criteria, multi stakeholder decision making tool for sustainable waste management

Abstract

Environmental sustainability is a concept, a vision for business, government, and the society, a goal to be achieved, and a strategy to guide and organise efforts toward more sustainable economic development. This paper proposes environmental management and sustainability strategic tools and techniques to facilitate stakeholder agreement, practical viability, and achievable efficiencies in pollution prevention, cleaner production, and life cycle sustainability assessment. This paper’s contribution to achieving sustainability goals and objectives is a qualitative multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder model to assess a portfolio of options for reducing environmental waste resulting from economic activities. The proposed model and its application for managing tobacco industry post-consumer waste demonstrate how challenges in integrating sustainability into business and government decision-making (economic, ecological-environmental and social) can be minimised to achieve strategic sustainability by incorporating multiple alternatives, viewpoints, and stakeholder perspectives.