Linguistic multi-criteria decision making for energy and environmental corporate policy

Nowadays, it is imperative need for the State to support Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) operation in this difficult business environment through the development and adoption of appropriate policies, fostering green entrepreneurship and green energy growth. This paper aims to present a coherent and transparent methodological multi-criteria framework, using linguistic variables, for assessing companies' energy and environmental corporate policies. The use of linguistic variables is a realistic approach, taking into consideration that the information needed is often unquantifiable, imprecise and uncertain. The proposed framework is based on the developed 2-tuple TOPSIS method, with its application to a number of SMEs. Moreover, a comparison with the 2-tuple LOWA operator and a sensitivity analysis are provided. According to the results, SMEs that integrate systematic environmental practices, beyond the required legislation, achieve high overall performance. These SMEs come mainly from countries with essential implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concepts. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.