The effect of environmental criteria on locating a biorefinery: a green facility location problem

Abstract

Underestimating facility location decisions may penalize business performance over the time. These penalties have usually been studied from the economic point of view, analyzing its impact on profitability. Additionally, the concern about obtaining sustainability is gaining importance, leading to a search for renewable energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, little attention has been paid to choosing a location considering environmental criteria. Thus, this work aims at determining a biorefinery location considering its impacts on natural resources. Therefore, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model has been developed, taking into account crop location and biomass production seasonality to obtain a proper location that minimizes environmental impact. The initial version of this paper was presented at the ICIL Conference in 2016.