Doctoral student Seyed Zeinab Aliahmadi, under the supervision of Armin Jabbarzadeh and Lucas Hof, has developed a decision-support tool to help egg industry companies with their circular transition. Discover the summary of their work.
Summary
With increasing attention to environmental issues and global economic pressure, companies are aiming to adopt more circular supply chains, meaning that materials are kept in use for as long as possible and waste generation is minimized. An important step in this transition is designing sustainable closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs), which keep products, equipment, and resources longer in service through reuse, sharing, remanufacturing, and recycling, hence minimizing resource consumption and lowering carbon emissions.
This research focuses on the egg industry, which generates various types of waste at different stages—from male chicks at hatcheries to poultry droppings on farms and broken eggshells at processing facilities. Many of these materials are rich in minerals and could be reused, yet most are discarded due to limited recycling options. For example, as illustrated in Figure 1, a single egg processing plant in Quebec, Canada, can produce up to seven tons of waste eggshells daily, which could be repurposed as filler for concrete or polymer materials to be used in conventional or additive manufacturing of new products or for agricultural uses, e.g., as fertilizer.
To address these challenges, this study introduces a data-driven approach and decision support tool for designing sustainable CLSCs for a circular economy. The developed approach integrates three key pillars of sustainability—economic, environmental, and social goals—guiding decisions about the location, capacity, and design of facilities, technology choices, inventory management, and transport planning. By using advanced data analytics, this tool can analyze information across the supply chain, enabling more informed decisions.
Applying this approach reveals that the three dimensions of sustainability—economic, environmental, and social—often compete with each other. For example, Figure 2 shows a trade-off among total costs, greenhouse gas emissions, and animal welfare, representing economic, environmental, and social goals, respectively. However, the present study shows that even a slight increase in cost can lead to meaningful benefits for the environment and society. Additionally, while new technologies require initial investment, they can greatly enhance sustainability in the long run.
Z1: Economic objective (Total Cost)
Z2: Environmental objective (Greenhouse Gas Emissions)
Z3: Social objective (Animal Cruelty)
