Track: Sustainability in Supply Chains and Operations

Abstract

This article aims to build sustainability in a biofuel supply chain. Ethanol is chosen to represent the biofuel and is assessed in terms of economic, environmental, and societal benefit feasibility. A unified optimization model of product, process and supply chain and life cycle assessment (LCA) is proposed to give the optimal solutions for sustainability. The decision parameters of process synthesis and logistics as well as raw materials production synthesize a closed loop economy. The techno-economic analysis embedded into the LCA so that the supply chain design achieves technical feasibility. The results show that integrated product and process design in the supply chain could achieve sustainability. Therefore it is proposed to extend further the design towards the SC contribution to energy grid of the local community.