Abstract Cement production is considered as one of the most energy consuming industries. Any novel strategy to make cement plants more efficient would increase the annual revenue while significantly reducing local and global emissions. In this paper, an energy audit in a cement plant (Kerman, Iran) is presented in order to introduce more viable potential solutions to push this industry towards a more sustainable status. Various parameters, such as temperature and system dimensions, were measured, and raw materials and product analyses were conducted. Then, using the measured and analyzed data, an energy balance analysis was performed. A novel framework based on a well-known global optimizer algorithm and a multi-criteria decision method is presented for integrated energy optimization. This proposed framework is then tested for the audited cement plant at two major steps. First, an efficient metaheuristic optimization approach is employed to optimize the compounds of clinker to reduce the consumption of energy in the cement industry. Second, a decision-making procedure, namely analytic hierarchy process, is used to make right decisions to reduce energy losses after completing an energy audit program. Results of the present study indicate the effectiveness of the proposed framework based on metaheuristic algorithm and decision-making approach.