• Energy Research

Abstract There is a growing interest in the importance of environmental sustainability in every industry as it can help organizations to achieve significant benefits through sustainable work practices. Green Information and Communication Technology is becoming a universal issue but it appears to be more of a concern in developing countries especially because of a perceived lack of awareness. The aim of this study is to determine the level of awareness of environmentally sustainable practices by Indian Information and Communication Technology professionals. It is evident that there are a very limited number of published scholarly articles available, which study Indian Information and Communication Technology professionals' awareness of environmental sustainability. This article tries to illuminate this relatively new domain by outlining Information and Communication Technology professionals' understanding about environmental sustainability and their organization's sustainability practices. Through data collected via questionnaires, the study found that participants in the age group of 35 and above are more aware of renewable energy, have a better knowledge of e-waste and exhibit a stronger personal responsibility to help make a difference on environmental issues in comparison to the other surveyed age groups. It was also found that Information and Communication Technology professionals working for organizations with less than 1000 employees tend to have lower awareness of sustainable Information and Communication Technology practices whereas environmental sustainability practices are more adopted in organizations with 1000 employees or higher. Female employees exhibited a higher awareness about greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy and e-waste over their male counterparts but the adoption of environment sustainability practices was largely similar between both genders. An awareness of sustainable Information and Communication Technology practices can help organizations to adopt various strategies in developing effective sustainability work practices and educating their employees. Finally, it is important for smaller organizations to provide training to educate their staff about sustainable Information and Communication Technology practices.

Abstract There is a growing interest in the importance of environmental sustainability in every industry as it can help organizations to achieve significant benefits through sustainable work practices. Green Information and Communication Technology is becoming a universal issue but it appears to be more of a concern in developing countries especially because of a perceived lack of awareness. The aim of this study is to determine the level of awareness of environmentally sustainable practices by Indian Information and Communication Technology professionals. It is evident that there are a very limited number of published scholarly articles available, which study Indian Information and Communication Technology professionals' awareness of environmental sustainability. This article tries to illuminate this relatively new domain by outlining Information and Communication Technology professionals' understanding about environmental sustainability and their organization's sustainability practices. Through data collected via questionnaires, the study found that participants in the age group of 35 and above are more aware of renewable energy, have a better knowledge of e-waste and exhibit a stronger personal responsibility to help make a difference on environmental issues in comparison to the other surveyed age groups. It was also found that Information and Communication Technology professionals working for organizations with less than 1000 employees tend to have lower awareness of sustainable Information and Communication Technology practices whereas environmental sustainability practices are more adopted in organizations with 1000 employees or higher. Female employees exhibited a higher awareness about greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy and e-waste over their male counterparts but the adoption of environment sustainability practices was largely similar between both genders. An awareness of sustainable Information and Communication Technology practices can help organizations to adopt various strategies in developing effective sustainability work practices and educating their employees. Finally, it is important for smaller organizations to provide training to educate their staff about sustainable Information and Communication Technology practices.

This paper formulates the selection of renewable energy alternatives as a multiattribute decision making problem and formulates a fuzzy multiattribute decision making method for selecting the most suitable renewable energy alternative for meeting the interests of the stakeholders. The vagueness and imprecision of the decision making process is adequately handled by using intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. An effective multiattribute decision making algorithm is developed for the selection process. This paper presents a problem associated with identifying best renewable energy choice and substantiates that the chosen method is most appropriate.

This paper formulates the selection of renewable energy alternatives as a multiattribute decision making problem and formulates a fuzzy multiattribute decision making method for selecting the most suitable renewable energy alternative for meeting the interests of the stakeholders. The vagueness and imprecision of the decision making process is adequately handled by using intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. An effective multiattribute decision making algorithm is developed for the selection process. This paper presents a problem associated with identifying best renewable energy choice and substantiates that the chosen method is most appropriate.

Agriculture decision support systems (DSSs) play an important role in facilitating evidence-based agricultural decision-making for improving agribusiness productivity. Evaluating and selecting the most appropriate agriculture DSS for sustainable agribusiness is, however, challenging due to the existence of production and marketing alternatives, a variety of objective functions from economic to lifestyle to long-term sustainability, and the subjectiveness and imprecision involved in the evaluation process. To help decision makers effectively deal with these issues, this paper presents a multicriteria analysis approach for evaluating and selecting the most appropriate agriculture DSS for sustainable agribusiness. The subjective assessments of decision makers in the evaluation process are formulated using linguistic variables approximated by fuzzy numbers. The concept based on the positive and the negative ideal solutions is applied for producing a performance index value for every agriculture DSS alternative across all evaluation criteria based on which the most appropriate agriculture DSS is. An empirical study is presented for demonstrating the step-wise process for evaluating and selecting the most appropriate agriculture DSS for sustainable agribusiness. The outcome from the performance evaluation process allows agribusinesses to effectively adopt appropriate agriculture DSSs for achieving competitive advantages.

Agriculture decision support systems (DSSs) play an important role in facilitating evidence-based agricultural decision-making for improving agribusiness productivity. Evaluating and selecting the most appropriate agriculture DSS for sustainable agribusiness is, however, challenging due to the existence of production and marketing alternatives, a variety of objective functions from economic to lifestyle to long-term sustainability, and the subjectiveness and imprecision involved in the evaluation process. To help decision makers effectively deal with these issues, this paper presents a multicriteria analysis approach for evaluating and selecting the most appropriate agriculture DSS for sustainable agribusiness. The subjective assessments of decision makers in the evaluation process are formulated using linguistic variables approximated by fuzzy numbers. The concept based on the positive and the negative ideal solutions is applied for producing a performance index value for every agriculture DSS alternative across all evaluation criteria based on which the most appropriate agriculture DSS is. An empirical study is presented for demonstrating the step-wise process for evaluating and selecting the most appropriate agriculture DSS for sustainable agribusiness. The outcome from the performance evaluation process allows agribusinesses to effectively adopt appropriate agriculture DSSs for achieving competitive advantages.

This paper presents a multi-criteria group decision making model for effectively evaluating the performance of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices under uncertainty in an organization. The subjective assessments of individual decision makers are appropriately represented with the use of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers for better tackling the uncertainty existent. An algorithm is developed to assist individual decision makers in evaluating the performance of alternative GSCM practices across all the evaluation criteria. An example is presented for demonstrating the applicability of the proposed model in solving similar problems in the real-world setting.

This paper presents a multi-criteria group decision making model for effectively evaluating the performance of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices under uncertainty in an organization. The subjective assessments of individual decision makers are appropriately represented with the use of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers for better tackling the uncertainty existent. An algorithm is developed to assist individual decision makers in evaluating the performance of alternative GSCM practices across all the evaluation criteria. An example is presented for demonstrating the applicability of the proposed model in solving similar problems in the real-world setting.