Sustainable supply chain system for defective products with uncertain resources and environmental impacts

Sustainable supply chain has garnered significant attention in recent years as a means of addressing various ecological and social challenges. Today, companies consistently grapple with higher levels of potential supply chain risks in their sustainable operations due to the uncertainty of the business environment. It is imperative for firms to implement effective sustainable supply chain strategies to mitigate the adverse consequences of these potential risks on overall performance. This article delves into an inventory model designed to formulate supply chain policies in scenarios where the quantity of carbon emissions is unknown, along with potential risks. The aim of the study is to outline potential risks in the supply chain and investigate their impact, especially the effects of uncertain carbon data, on supply chain strategies. To address the uncertainty of carbon parameters throughout the system process, we apply fuzzification to all carbon factors, treating them as intuitionistic triangular fuzzy numbers. The model is then defuzzified using the signed distance method. And we propose a solution approach designed to determine green ecological policies. Numerical analysis is provided to validate the proposed model. The main numerical conclusions drawn from this study in the ecological context are threefold: (i) effective control of carbon emissions from supply chain processes can be achieved through strategic investments in green technologies, (ii) there exists a potential to minimize total cost, and (iii) an assessment of the effects of human errors during inspection on optimal strategies. The results underscore a crucial consideration for policymakers, emphasizing the need for exercising caution when contemplating flexibility in accounting for the quantity of carbon emissions during the development of environmental strategies.