Design of sustainable and resilient eco-industrial parks by means of optimization tools

Abstract

Nowadays, the increase in the industrial production is causing environmental problems when appropriate planning and control are absent. To overcome this situation, the Eco-Industrial Parks (EIPs) arise as a new way to plan and design industrial complexes, where the companies located together are connected with each other to achieve sustainability advantages for its participants and the sector. Since these advantages depend on its configuration, a proper planning and design is critical. Moreover, the stability of this network plays a significant part when a participant suffers a stop in production. This work seeks to propose a mathematical-based design of an EIP to promote and support the implementation of industrial networks with sustainability and security objectives. To achieve this goal, (i) a database of sustainability indicators is built and four criteria for their selection are proposed; (ii) a resilience indicator for EIPs is defined to improve their operation security; and (iii) a multi-objective optimization problem is formulated to design EIPs. A significant set of sustainability indicators are listed and classified regarding the number of assessed dimensions: \textit{single}, if one sustainability dimensions is assessed, and \textit{integrated}, if two or three are assessed. Moreover, to select a subset of proper indicators, four criteria are proposed: understanding, pragmatism, relevance, and partial representation of sustainability. An indicator is constructed and proposed to follow the resilience of an EIP, improving the security of the whole system by considering the dynamic of the participants to endure a disruptive event. This indicator is based on two main characteristics of an industrial network: its topology and its operation; which are respectively assessed by the weighted sum of two sub-indicators: Network Connectivity Index (NCI) and Flow Adaptability Index (φ). A multi-objective optimization model is constructed based on the industrial complex of Ulsan, in South Korea, in order to design a sustainable and resilient EIP. This model considers a subset of sustainability indicators and the proposed resilience indicator. The sustainability indicators are filtered with the four criteria for selection. The resulting configurations improve all the considered aspects at the same time, allowing to design an EIP with focus on its sustainability and resilience. The use of the resilience indicator as an additional objective allows to compose an EIP with an improved adaptation to reality, addressing the reluctance of the industries to participate in this industrial network. Finally, the optimization model achieves the systematic design of new EIPs, considering the sustainability and resilience aspects as objectives in the optimization. This tool could play an important role in supporting decision-makers to design industrial networks, generating new, more sustainable and more resilient alternatives.