A country-level multi-objective optimization model for a sustainable steel supply chain

Steel supply chains have been pushed to consider environmental and social aspects, other than financial, however, in the context of Operational Research, the few papers proposing mathematical formulations and algorithms tackle only few dimensions of the problem. This study proposes a solution for sustainable steel production by formulating a multi-objective, multi-level, multi-modal, multi-product, and multi-period model and also devising an evolutionary algorithm for the problem. The results provide a Pareto front mapping the conflicting nature of economic, environmental and social objectives; show how changes in the production technology and transportation mode impact the objectives, and how locations with social vulnerability influence the decision of where and when to locate facilities. This paper provides a broad-ranging formulation and the results show its potential to help decision makers of the steel supply chain to make decisions considering not only economic factors.