Environmental Sustainable Development and Green Economy Strategies in Khouzestan Steel Company

Background and Objectives: Limitless use of natural resources and increased environmental pollution by various industries will lead to rapid environmental destruction. The steel industry interacts with the environment in all its activities, so green economy and sustainable development is an inevitable necessity in this industry. This study aimed to identify and prioritize sustainable development and green economy strategies in Khuzestan Steel Company.

Material and Methods: In this study participants are experts familiar with sustainable development and green economy strategies in Khuzestan Steel Company who were selected through purposive sampling in order to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT), and developing strategies.The External and Internal Factor Evaluation Matrix as well as the SWOT matrix were formed then strategies were ranked using TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) technique.

Results: 6 opportunities and 5 threats were identified as external factors and 8 strengths and 6 weaknesses were identified as internal factors and 21 strategies were developed. Among the external factors "Develop and equip the company with new technologies" with the final score of 0.498 and among the internal factors "Waste management and pollution control" with the final score of 0.31 got the highest score.

Conclusion: According to the results, the sum of the final scores of External and Internal Factors Evaluation Matrixes are 2.72 and 2.57 respectively, this shows that company performance is appropriate. ST1 strategy with closeness coefficient 0/7 was also ranked first.