Vaidyanathan Jayaraman – författare

A sustainable enterprise is one that contributes to sustainable development by simultaneously delivering economic, social and environmental benefits or what has been termed "the triple bottom line." While pursuing profit, socially responsible companies should be sensitive to the environment and uphold the rights of all the firm''s stakeholders. This edited volume explores leading-edge ideas — both by academics and forward-thinking companies — to (re)design and market products, source, manufacture, and eventually distribute and recover or dispose of them in an environmentally, ecologically, and socially responsible way.

This edited volume is made up of fifteen chapters loosely grouped into clusters. After an introduction, chapter 2 shows the greenhouse emissions at various levels, from countries all the way to individual products. Chapters 3-7 each focus on an industrial sector and address issues specific to that industry, with chapter 7 presenting a case study on LEED certification of Miller Hall, home of the Mason School of Business where two of the authors (Tonya and Ram) work. Chapters 8-10 address product take back in the supply chain. Chapter 8 introduces e-waste and surveys what firms are doing to combat it. Chapter 9 provides an overview of existing take-back legislation and academic papers that have studied various research questions associated with them. Chapter 10 is a tutorial that addresses the problem of product disposition on a closed-loop supply chain: what should a firm do with a product return?

Chapters 11-15 address measurement, monitoring, decision-making, and reporting regarding environmental issues in a firm. Chapter 11 provides an academic survey of eco-labeling and the consumer’s willingness to pay for them. Chapter 12 discusses how firms can measure the total carbon footprint in their supply chains and some of the strategies they can use to mitigate carbon emissions. Using the price of call options, chapter 13illustrates how managers can quantify the savings attributed to sustainability-related investment. Chapter 14 develops a non-linear optimization model that addresses the complex trade-offs involved in making joint operational and environmental decisions. Finally, chapter 15 develops a Data Envelopment Analysis-based method for supplier evaluation incorporating environmental and business factors.

This handbook includes three parts, corresponding to the following three domains of OR/MS research related to sustainability: (i) Systems Design, Innovation, and Technology, (ii) Manufacturing, Logistics, and Transportation, and (iii) Sustainable Natural Resource Management. The first part of the handbook (Chapters 2-6) will focus on the creation and development of sustainable products, services, value chains, and organizations from a systems perspective. Key areas to be covered include Green Design & Innovation, Technology and Engineering Management, Sustainable Value Chain Systems, Sustainability Standards and Performance Evaluation, and Circular Economy and New Research Directions in Sustainability. The second part of the handbook (Chapters 7-11) will concentrate on the major operational and logistic issues faced by today’s industries in pursuing sustainability. Key areas to be covered include Remanufacturing, Reverse Logistics, Closed-Loop Supply Chains, Sustainable Transportation, and New Research Directions in Green Supply Chain Management. The third part of the proposed handbook (Chapters 12-16) will center on major sustainability issues in managing engineering infrastructure and natural resources. Key areas to be covered include Renewable Energy, Sustainable Water Resource, Biofuel Infrastructure, Natural Gas, and New Research Direction in Sustainable Resource Management.

The handbook aims to bridge the three main OR/MS research domains in sustainability: “Systems Design, Innovation, and Technology,” “Manufacturing, Logistics, and Transportation,” and “Sustainable Natural Resource Management.” Traditionally, these domains are treated separately in the OR/MS literature. By combining the three domains, the handbook will provide a more holistic treatment of MS/OR methodologies to address critical sustainability issues faced by today’s society. Unlike most existing handbooks which only focus on current OR/MS research in sustainability within a domain, this handbook will include a concluding chapter in each of the three parts to discuss and identify potential future research directions in each of the three main domains.