Abstract Effective natural gas utilization while balancing profitability and CO 2 footprints is of increasing importance in many regions of the world. This work addresses natural gas utilization in industrial clusters, where decisions are required on the allocation of available feedstock across possible processing options to convert natural gas into marketable products. In light of expected future requirements to significantly reduce CO 2 emissions, such decisions should achieve utilization schemes that maximize economic returns but do not exceed acceptable emission limits. This work proposes a systematic, optimization-based approach to simultaneously determine natural gas utilization and CO 2 management through carbon capture, utilization and storage as well as renewable energy strategies. The paper defines the problem and outlines the proposed approach before a case study is solved to illustrate its application.