Sustainable energy supplier selection in turbulent environments: a multi-stage DEA-Malmquist based dynamic 3D-Kraljic model

Accurately selecting and managing appropriate sustainable energy suppliers is an essential topic, not only in practicing environmental protection, but also in ensuring that dynamic and unpredictable risks can be properly addressed. However, current research in energy supplier selection has several shortcomings, including an insufficient consideration of undesired environmental outputs and turbulent events, and the lack of a long-term evaluation mechanism, which greatly increases supply risk. To fill these gaps, the paper aims to evaluate energy suppliers in a turbulent environment by considering sustainability, risk dynamics and future development, based on a multi-stage DEA-Malmquist model, which not only broadens the perspective to observe energy supplier capabilities, but also provides a higher degree of accuracy in the evaluation. In addition, to improve the long-term management of sustainable energy suppliers, a novel dynamic 3D-Kraljic matrix has been constructed by adding quantitative data to the traditional qualitative Kraljic model. The proposed model was applied to a leading Chinese chemical company to demonstrate its effectiveness.