A Goal Programming model with satisfaction function for long-run sustainability in the United Arab Emirates

Goal Programming (GP) is a relevant and simple technique in Operations Research that helps Decision Makers in solving problems involving conflicting and competing criteria and objectives. A GP program is a distance-based model that involves the minimization of the difference between the achievement level of a certain criterion and its goal. GP models when combined with the notion of satisfaction or utility function provide practical advantage to the decision maker to include a system of preferences. In this paper, we present a GP model with satisfaction function that concurrently incorporates criteria on number of employees across various economic sectors and multiple sustainability goals on GDP growth, electricity consumption and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The presented model offers critical inputs in planning and implementation of amenable strategies towards sustainable development. We validate the proposed model with data on vital economic sectors of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) towards achieving year 2030 goals.