Carbon Emission Based Optimisation Approach for the Facility Location Problem

Abstract

In today’s global competitive economy, companies should create value for customer and create value for environment to protect their competitive strengths and/or obtain competitive advantages. Creation of value depends on developing strategic approaches like determining carbon emission level to consider environmental effects. Furthermore, the financial incentives and governmental pressures on companies to reduce their emissions force companies to change and optimize their internal and external processes in order to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, a carbon emission based facility location problem is discussed. A new hyrid method that aims to reduce the amount of CO2 emission in distribution network is presented. Fuzzy C-Means and Gustafson-Kessel algorithms are used to perform clustering analyses. This is followed by the selection of appropriate facility location through the minimization of CO2 emission levels resulting from transportation activities between the facilities and customers by using the emission based center of gravity method which is a new method developed from classical center of gravity method