Multi-Criteria Decision-Making for Sustainable Supplier Selection
Summary
Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) for sustainable supplier selection addresses the challenge of choosing suppliers that balance economic, environmental and social objectives. Organisations face competing criteria such as cost, quality, delivery reliability, carbon footprint and labour practices. MCDM provides structured frameworks—often incorporating pairwise comparisons, distance-based ranking and optimisation—to aggregate diverse quantitative and qualitative measures. Fuzzy-set extensions and hybrid models enable decision makers to capture uncertainty in expert judgments and stakeholder preferences. Recent advances emphasise integration of objective weighting techniques with subjective assessments, yielding robust, transparent ranking of supplier alternatives. Practical applications span sectors from food and healthcare to energy, demonstrating that MCDM can guide procurement towards decarbonisation targets, resource efficiency and supply-chain resilience. The global significance of these methods lies in their capacity to align supplier networks with circular-economy principles, to inform procurement policies and to support real-world case studies that illustrate how hybrid MCDM tools deliver sustainable value across complex, multi-stakeholder environments.
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Multi-Criteria Decision-Making for Sustainable Supplier Selection publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in multi-criteria decision-making for sustainable supplier selection across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM): A class of methods for evaluating alternatives against several conflicting criteria to support transparent, systematic choice.
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP): A structured technique that derives criterion weights through pairwise comparisons and hierarchical decomposition of decision problems.
Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS): A ranking method that assesses alternatives by their Euclidean distance to positive and negative ideal solutions.
Fuzzy Environment: A decision context in which imprecision and vagueness in data or preferences are modelled using fuzzy-set theory.
Best–Worst Method (BWM): A weighting approach that establishes weights based on comparisons between the most and least important criteria.
Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS): A technique for scoring alternatives by proportional analysis of beneficial and non-beneficial criteria.
Weighted Aggregated Sum-Product Assessment (WASPAS): A hybrid method combining weighted sum and weighted product models for comprehensive ranking.
Bibliometric Analysis: Quantitative examination of publication patterns to identify research trends, influential works and collaboration networks.
References
- A comparative analysis of Multi-Attributive Border Approximation Area Comparison (MABAC) model for healthcare supplier selection in fuzzy environments. Decision Analytics Journal (2023).
- Exploring scientific publications for the development of relevant and effective supplier selection methods and criteria in the food Industry: A comprehensive analysis. Cleaner Logistics and Supply Chain (2024).
- Strategic supplier selection for renewable energy supply chain under green capabilities (fuzzy BWM-WASPAS-COPRAS approach). Energy Strategy Reviews (2022).
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