Using Data Envelopment Analysis to Evaluate Environmentally Conscious Waste Treatment Technology

Joseph Sarkis and Jeffrey Weinrach

Journal of Cleaner Production Vol. 9, No. 5, 2001, pp. 417-427.

As environmental issues become increasingly important for organizational operations, the roles of organizational practices and technology in improving environmental performance increase. Some of these new practices and technologies are difficult to evaluate using traditional approaches. In this paper we analyze a decision making case study concerning the investment and adoption of environmentally conscious waste treatment technology in a government supported agency. Data envelopment analysis, and some of its extensions, will be used to evaluate the technologies. The results show that this tool could be useful in evaluating these technologies. Managerial insights on the use of these models, including caveats on the use of DEA, are also presented.

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