Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

A risk assessment framework of PPP waste-to-energy incineration

projects in China under 2-dimension linguistic environment
Yunna Wu a, b, Chuanbo Xu a, b, *, Lingwenying Li a, b, Yang Wang a, b, Kaifeng Chen a, b,
Ruhang Xu a, b
a
School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, People's Republic of China
b
Beijing Key Laboratory of New Energy and Low-Carbon Development (North China Electric Power University), Changping Beijing, 102206, People's
Republic of China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Risk assessment is critical to insuring the success of waste-to-energy (WTE) projects under public
Received 4 April 2017 eprivate partnership (PPP) model as risks are accompanied with the life-cycle of the projects. Uncer-
Received in revised form tainty composed of fuzziness and randomness is an important issue in the risk assessment under
21 January 2018
increasingly complex environments. The 2-dimension linguistic information is a powerful tool to express
Accepted 7 February 2018
Available online 14 February 2018
the fuzziness of information, and meanwhile, the cloud model perfectly depicts the randomness of in-
formation with three numerical characteristics. Combining them together, this paper puts forward a risk
assessment framework of PPP WTE incineration projects. Firstly, an evaluation index system for risk
Keywords:
Risk assessment
assessment of China's PPP WTE incineration projects is constructed, which includes 14 criteria involved
PPP in four dimensions of construction and operation risk, macro-economic risk, legal and socio-political risk,
WTE and government risk; secondly, a conversion model between 2-dimension linguistic variables and clouds
2-dimension linguistic information is developed; thirdly, the cloud Choquet integral (CCI) operator is utilized to handle the correlations
Cloud model among risk factors; fourthly, a risk assessment framework is established to assess the overall risk level of
several China's PPP WTE incineration projects. From the empirical demonstration and comparison
analysis, the proposed framework can effectively deal with such a complicated problem and lead to an
outstanding result.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction incineration, by contrast, is a more prospective disposal way to

A huge amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated each
year has become a serious obstacle to the sustainable development
of China (Zhang et al., 2010). Fig. 1 shows the trends in the amounts
of MSW collected and the amounts of MSW treated by incineration
and landfill in China in the last decade. MSW generation has been
increasing at an annual rate of 8e10% (Nie, 2008), with over 190
million tons of MSW being produced in 2015, and this figure will
increase to 480 million tons in 2030 (Xu and Ge, 2011). Landfill is
the dominant form of waste disposal in China, and more than 60%
of MSW is treated in this way (Song et al., 2017). However, landfills
occupy large quantities of land and significantly affect the sur-
rounding environment (Dong et al., 2014; Xu et al., 2015). Waste
* Corresponding author. School of Economics and Management, North China
Electric Power University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
E-mail address: 18810736266@163.com (C. Xu).
taking care of the waste for it can not only significantly reduces the
volume, but also reduces wasteland fills and makes waste harmless
(Cucchiella et al., 2017). Thus, the amount of MSW being inciner-
ated has risen sharply in recent years, and incineration will grad-
ually replace landfill to become the most important means of MSW
management in the future.
At the present stage, the PPP financing model has been widely
applied in implementing WTE incineration projects in China in
order to make up for the deficiencies of public finances and make
full use of the advanced production experience and management
systems of the private sector, (Arbulú et al., 2017; Song et al., 2013;
Xu et al., 2015). There are numerous cases of the implementation of
WTE incineration projects under the PPP model, such as China's
first WTE incineration plant completed in 2005: Chongqing
Tongxing WTE incineration plant.
With the unremitting effort of scholars, numerous studies
concerned with PPP WTE incineration projects have been carried

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.077
0959-6526/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617
Fig. 1. Amounts of MSW collected, MSW incineration and MSW landfill in China in the
last decade (data source: Web of Nation Bureau of Statistics of China: http://www.stats.
gov.cn/).
out, mainly focusing on economic and environmental problems
(Ferna
ndezgonz
alez et al., 2017; Song et al., 2017), technological
problem (Khan et al., 2017) and life cycle assessment (Ayodele et al.,
2017). By comparison, valid research on risk management of PPP
WTE incineration projects is insufficient. However, due to the large
amount of investments, long payback period, complex contractual
relationship, and imperfect law and regulation, many uncertain risk
factors that affect the implementation of PPP projects are inherent
in the whole life cycle (Xu et al., 2015). At the same time, quite a lot
of PPP projects failed owing to poor risk management, such as
Guangdong Huizhou WTE incineration project (Wan et al., 2015).
Thus, risk management, as a key factor to ensure the success of PPP
projects, should be worthier of our attention.
Up to now, only two studies have investigated the risk man-
agement of PPP WTE projects. Xu et al. (2015) identified the critical
risk factors (CRFs) that affect the construction and operation of PPP
WTE incineration plants and drew lessons for the effective man-
agement of these CRFs through a case study of a completed PPP
WTE incineration plant in Shanghai. Song et al. (2013) identified the
key risks in the development, operation and management of PPP
WTE incineration projects in China and formulated corresponding
strategies for each risk in order to progressively foster the renew-
able energy based power generation. Even though, they did not
give a method to assess the risk level of PPP WTE incineration
projects. Risk assessment is one of the key elements of risk man-
agement (Liu et al., 2010). Previous researches indicated that an
objective, reliable and practical risk assessment method is neces-
sary for the success of PPP projects (Jin and Doloi, 2008). To date,
many methods are available to be adopted for assessing risk under
various environments. Among them, four classical quantitative risk
assessment methods have been extensively used: Monte Carlo
simulation (Jiang et al., 2013), fault tree analysis (Gierczak, 2014),
fuzzy synthetic evaluation (Wu et al., 2017a) and sensitivity anal-
ysis (Al et al., 2017). However, these methods have certain de-
ficiencies or limitations. The Monte Carlo simulation method
cannot determine the probability distribution of risk variables, and
it always requires a combination of other methods. The sensitivity
analysis method can obtain the impact of risk factors, but fails to
acquire the probability of occurrence. For the fault tree analysis
method, the failure probability of the basic event which is impre-
cise, deficient or vague (Khakzad et al., 2011) must be known and
considered as an accurate value (Guo et al., 2016). For the fuzzy
synthetic evaluation method, the use of membership function has
been questioned that by using the membership function through
603
artificial hypothesis, the fuzzy number is replaced by the exact
numerical value, so that the fuzziness cannot be well reflected in
the traditional fuzzy synthetic evaluation method (Li et al., 1995).
After analyzing the above-mentioned methods, a conclusion can be
drawn that these classical methods are not suitable for assessing
the risk of PPP WTE incineration projects and a more effective
method is urgent to be developed.
As a well-known branch of decision-making, multi-criteria de-
cision making (MCDM) aims to find the most suitable solution from
a set of projects under multiple criteria conditions. Risk assessment
has been defined as a MCDM problem in many researches (Okoro
et al., 2017; Papapostolou et al., 2017). Difficulties related to PPP
WTE incineration projects risk assessment mainly result from the
uncertainty of decision information, which is caused by the two
following reasons: 1) project risk assessment is carried out in the
early stage of the project based on ex-ante estimates about what
the future value will be, so the resulting value is uncertain; 2) the
judgment of some decision information involved in risk assessment
generally depends on experts’ experiences, however, experts
cannot express their opinions as accurately as machines when
describing a complex object, and vagueness always exists in the
thinking mode. Thus, the PPP WTE incineration projects risk
assessment is a tough process under an uncertain environment.
The concept of uncertainty has the characteristics of fuzziness,
randomness, incompleteness and instability, etc. Among them,
fuzziness and randomness are the most important and funda-
mental issues (Li, 2004). Linguistic variable, introduced by (Zadeh,
1975), emerges as a powerful tool to deal with the fuzziness since it
is much more closer to humans' thinking and knowledge. For
example, when evaluating the quality of a car, which is qualitative
in nature, the evaluations are usually expressed as linguistic vari-
ables, such as ‘‘poor’’, “fair”, and ‘‘good’’. Recently, inspired by the
linguistic variable, Zhu et al. (2009) introduced a 2-dimension
linguistic variable, which includes two common linguistic vari-
ables, to precisely assess objects with linguistic information. One
dimension is used for describing the evaluation result of objects
provided by the expert, and the other is used for describing the self-
assessment on the reliability of the given evaluation result by the
expert. Obviously, employing the 2-dimension linguistic variable
can improve the reliability of the evaluation on objects. Neverthe-
less, it needs to be pointed out that the 2-dimension linguistic
variable is able to solve the fuzziness of qualitative concepts but fail
to characterize their randomness. Fortunately, the cloud model,
which is a quantitative and qualitative uncertainty conversion
model proposed by Li et al. (1995), can overcome the above defect
and make decisions more realistic. The cloud model depicts the
fuzziness and randomness of a qualitative concept with three nu-
merical characteristics, making objective and interchangeable
transformation between qualitative concepts and quantitative
values becomes possible. Regarding the significant advantages of 2-
dimension linguistic variable and cloud model, it is meaningful to
combine them together to deal with MCDM problems, which will
contribute to more high-quality and reasonable decisions.
The originality of this paper comes from three-folds: 1) an
evaluation index system of China's PPP WTE incineration projects
risk assessment is established via literature review, case study
analysis and questionnaire survey; 2) a new model for converting
the 2-dimension linguistic variables into clouds is proposed, which
considers the reliability of the given evaluation result and can
better deal with the fuzziness and randomness simultaneously; 3) a
risk assessment framework of PPP WTE incineration projects,
which combines the ideas of management to improve management
efficiency and quality in practice, is established.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 in-
troduces the fundamental conceptions of cloud model, 2-
604 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617
dimension linguistic variables, CCI operator as well as the model of
converting 2-dimension linguistic variables into clouds. Section 3
constructs an evaluation index system for the risk assessment of
PPP WTE incineration projects in China. Section 4 establishes a risk
assessment framework of PPP WTE incineration projects. Section 5
assesses and compares the risk of several PPP WTE incineration
projects in China. Section 6 makes a comparison between the
proposed method and the existing method. Section 7 draws the
conclusions, contributions, limitations and outlooks.
2. Methodology
2.1. 2-Dimension linguistic variable
Most factors for the risk assessment of PPP WTE incineration
projects are qualitative rather than quantitative. A common prac-
tice is to ask several authoritative experts to express their opinions
based on their knowledge and experience. Compared with the
linguistic variable, the 2-dimension linguistic variable is more
suitable for the problem of PPP WTE incineration projects risk
assessment. The linguistic variable assumes that all the experts are
fully confident with their results. However, some experts may not
be very sure about the results given by themselves since PPP WTE
incineration projects risk assessment is conducted in an uncertain
environment. Clearly it will lead to information distortion and loss
if the reliability of the given evaluation result is ignored. The 2-
dimension linguistic variable add an additional information,
which describes the self-assessment of the expert on the reliability
of the given evaluation result, based on the linguistic variable.
There is no doubt that the application of 2-dimension linguistic
variable can increase the reliability and accuracy of the risk
assessment on PPP WTE incineration projects. Usage of the 2-
dimension linguistic variable in MCDM is very popular (Liu et al.,
2016; Wu et al., 2017b). The concept of 2-dimension linguistic
variable is as follows:
Definition 1 (Liu, 2012). Let b s ¼ ðsi ; hj Þ, where si is I class lin-
guistic information that represents expert's judgment to an eval-
uated object, and si is the element from pre-defined linguistic
assessment set SI ¼ ðsl ; /; 0; /sl Þ, while hj is II class linguistic
information that represents the subjective evaluation on the reli-
ability of their given results, and hj is the element from pre-defined
linguistic assessment set HII ¼ ðht ; /; 0; /ht Þ,then bs is called a 2-
dimension linguistic variable.
Example 1. The 2-dimension linguistic variable b s ¼ ðs1 ; h1 Þ is
adopted by an expert to evaluate a PPP WTE incineration project on
a certain criterion. The pre-defined linguistic assessment sets are
SI ¼ ðs2 ¼ very high; s1 ¼ high; s0 ¼ fair; s1 ¼ low; s2 ¼
very lowÞands. Thus, the I class linguistic information “very high”
represents the risk level of the PPP WTE incineration project on the
criterion, and the “partial confident” reflects the evaluation on the
reliability of the expert's given risk level.
2.2. Cloud model and CCI operator
Using the 2-dimension linguistic variable to reflect the experts’
preferences is one way to depict the fuzziness and increase the
evaluation quality, and the other one to improve the reasonability
of risk assessment is to characterize the randomness of uncer-
tainty. As mentioned earlier, the risk assessment of PPP WTE
incineration projects is conducted under the uncertain environ-
ment. Randomness is an important property of uncertainty due to
the fact that conditions cannot determine outcomes sometimes.
Fortunately, the cloud model can characterize the randomness
effectively, which makes the risk assessment of PPP WTE
incineration projects more realistic. With the rapid development
of the cloud model theory, successful applications have been car-
ried out in various fields, such as intelligent control (Javed et al.,
2017), algorithm improvement (Wu et al., 2015), edge detection
(Zhao et al., 2017) and water eutrophication assessment (Yan et al.,
2017), etc. In particular, after (Wang and Feng, 2005) introduced
the conversion between linguistic variables and clouds, the cloud
model has also been applied to the field of MCDM (Peng and
Wang, 2017; Wu et al., 2016a, 2016b). The concept of cloud
model is as follows:
Definition 2 (Li et al., 2009) Let U be the universe of discourse
and T a linguistic variable inU. If xðx2UÞ is a random instantiation
of linguistic variable T, which satisfiesEn0  NðEn;
2 02
He Þ,x  NðEx; En Þ and the certainty degree of x belonging to
2
ðxExÞ
linguistic variable T satisfies m ¼ e 2ðEn0 Þ2 .
Then the distribution of x in the universe U is called a normal
cloud. The cloud model can effectively integrate the randomness
and fuzziness of concepts and describe the overall quantitative
property of a concept by the three numerical characteristics as
follows:
 Expectation Ex is the mathematical expectation of the cloud
drops belonging to a linguistic variable in the universe and is the
most representative and typical sample of the linguistic
variable;
 Entropy En represents the fuzziness measurement of a linguistic
variable, which is determined by both the randomness and the
fuzziness of the linguistic variable;
 Hyper entropy He is the uncertain degree of entropy En, which
reflects the dispersion of the cloud drops.
As for aggregating the clouds, how to select a properly aggre-
gation operator is a key problem. Most of the existing operators for
aggregating the decision information of each criterion, such as
weighted averaging (WA) operator, ordered weighted averaging
(OWA) operator, and ordered weighted geometric averaging
(OWGA) operator, are based on the classical additive measure of
linear aggregation operators, assuming that the decision criteria are
independent and uncorrelated. As a matter of fact, there are surely
some correlations among the decision criteria involved in PPP MSW
incineration projects risk assessment. For instance, mistakes in
government decision-making may lead to improper project loca-
tion, which in turn may worsen surrounding environment and
cause severe opposition from local residents (Song et al., 2013).
Thus, Choquet integral with respect to 2-order additive fuzzy
measure is a powerful tool for it can effectively reduce computing
complexity and describe the correlations among the criteria.
Recently, a CCI operator, which combines the cloud model and
Choquet integral with respect to the 2-order additive fuzzy mea-
sure, is proposed by Wu et al. (2016a). Accordingly, the CCI operator
is utilized to model the correlations among decision criteria
involved in PPP WTE incineration projects risk assessment, which is
presented as follows:
Definition 3 (Wu et al., 2016a). Let Yi ¼ ðExi ; Eni ; Hei Þ be a
collection of clouds, and m is the fuzzy measure on Y ¼ fY1 ; Y2 ;
/Yn g. The mapping CCIm : Y n /Yis defined as a CCIm operator:
n 
X   
CCIm ðYa1 ; Ya2 ; /Yan Þ ¼ Yðai Þ  Yðai1 Þ m AðiÞ (1)
i¼1
where ($) indicates a permutation on Y such that Yða1 Þ  Yða2 Þ  /
 Yðan Þ andAðiÞ ¼ fYðai Þ ; /; Yðan Þ g.
Example 2. Assuming that the performances of a PPP WTE
 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617 605

incineration project on three specific criteria (c1 ; c2 ; c3 ) are trans-

formed into the clouds Y1¼ (60, 3, 0.1), Y2¼ (55, 4, 0.1), Y3¼ (50, 5, 0:191ðXmax  Xmin Þ
En1 ¼ En1 ¼ ;
0.2). The ascending order of them are Y3 < Y2 < Y1 . mðc1 ; c2 ; c3 Þ ¼ 1; jþtþ1
mðc1 ; c2 Þ ¼¼ 0:75; mðc1 ; c3 Þ ¼ 0:8;mðc2 ; c3 Þ ¼ 0:6;mðc1 Þ ¼ 0:2;
mðc2 Þ ¼ 0:3; mðc3 Þ ¼ 0:25 is the fuzzy measure on the three criteria. Eni1
Then, the CCIm can be calculated as: En0 ¼ 0:618Enþ1 ; Eni ¼ Eni ¼ ; ð2  i  lÞ:
0:618


CCIm ðYa1 ; Ya2 ; /Yan Þ ¼ 50  1 þ ð55  50Þ  0:75 þ ð60  55Þ*0:2;
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
    ffi
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
52  1 þ 42 þ 52  0:75 þ 32 þ 42  0:2; 0:22  1 þ 0:22 þ 0:12  0:75 þ 0:12 þ 0:12  0:2

¼ ð56:25; 7:79; 0:29Þ

2.3. A new model for transforming 2-dimension linguistic variables

into clouds (iii) Calculate He:

The classical model proposed by (Wang and Feng, 2005) has kis given beforeHe0 ¼ 3k , and.Hei ¼ Hei ¼ Hei1 =0:618;
jþtþ1
made a great contribution to the application of cloud model.
1  i  l:
However, it cannot deal with the linguistic variables with the form
To show the superiority of the new model, a comparison be-
of 2-dimension linguistic information. In this section, we define a
tween the proposed model and the classical model proposed by
new model for converting the 2-dimension linguistic variable set
(Wang and Feng, 2005) is made. In this comparison, three 2-
into a series of adjacent clouds. Because the Entropy (En) and Hyper
entropy (He) of a cloud are determined by both the randomness and dimension linguistic variables bs 1 ¼ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ¼ ðhigh;
the fuzziness of the linguistic variable expressed by experts, this partial confidentÞ, bs 2 ¼ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ¼ ðhigh; confidentÞ
conversion is deduced by the principle that the higher the reli- andbs 3 ¼ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ¼ ðhigh; fully confidentÞ are transformed by the
ability of the results (hj ) given by experts, the smaller the Entropy new model while a linguistic variables1 ¼ high is converted by the
(En) and Hyper entropy (He) are. classical model (Wang and Feng, 2005). The four corresponding
Generally, there are two ways in generating clouds. One is on the clouds Y1 , Y2 , Y3 and Y4 are calculated as follows:
basis of the 3s principle of the normal cloud, and the other utilizes
the golden ratio which originates from Fibonacci series (Liu and Liu, Y1 ¼ ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ; Y2 ¼ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ; Y3 ¼ Y4
2016). The application of the former one is limited since the
¼ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ:
determination of parameters requires abundant experiments or
some subjective methods. By comparison, the latter method is The linguistic variable implies that the experts are fully confi-
more objective and convenient to operate. Since it plays an dent about their given results, thus the cloudY3 , transformed by 2-
important role in transformation between linguistic terms and dimension linguistic variableb s 3 ¼ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ¼ ðhigh; fully confidentÞ,
clouds, the golden ratio has been widely applied in the decision- is the same as the cloud converted by the linguistic varia-
making field (Wang et al., 2014b, 2015). Then, applying the bles1 ¼ high in the case of t ¼ 1.
golden ratio, the new model is defined as follows: A graphical representation of the comparison result is shown in
Definition 4. Let bs ¼ ðsi ; hj Þ be a 2-dimension linguistic variable, Fig. 2.
si and hj are the element from linguistic assessment set SI ¼ ðsl ; / It is clear from the graph that the coverage and discrete degree
; 0; /sl Þ and HII ¼ ðht ; /; 0; /ht Þ, respectively. The corresponding of these clouds has obvious difference. Since Ex1 ¼ Ex2 ¼ Ex3 ¼
three numerical characters of 2l þ 1 clouds are calculated as Ex4 , En1 > En2 > En3 ¼ En4 and He1 > He2 > He3 ¼ He4 , obviously,
follows: the ranking result of these clouds is Y3 ¼ Y4 > Y1 > Y2 , which is in
line with the cognition that the same results with different re-
(i) Calculate Ex: liabilities are discrepant. Also, the more confident with the results
given by experts are, the more valuable the results would be.
To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed model concisely,
Ex0 ¼ ðXmin þ Xmax Þ=2; Exl ¼ Xmin ; Exl ¼ Xmax the advantages and disadvantages of the existing models and the
proposed model are summarized and shown in Table 1. As can be
  seen from the table, the proposed model overcomes some short-
Xmax þ Xmin comings of other models, such as not corresponding to the human
Exi ¼ Ex0 þ 0:382i ðl  1Þ
2 cognitive habits, ignoring the reliability of the given evaluation
result, and failing to handle the randomness. Therefore, the quality
of risk assessment can be improved largely based on the above
 
Xmax þ Xmin improvements. Whereas, the disadvantages of the proposed model
Exi ¼ Ex0  0:382i ðl  1Þ; ð1  i  l  1Þ are also obvious. That is, its calculation process is slightly compli-
2
cated and the decision cost is high. However, compared with the
loss of the decision-making mistake, the increasing decision cost
(ii) Calculate En: and the complex calculation process may seem fairly trifling.
606 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617

Fig. 2. Clouds comparison. The cloudsY1 ,Y2 andY3 are transformed by the 2-dimension linguistic variablesbs 1 ¼ ðs1 ; h1 Þbs 2 ¼ ðs1 ; h0 Þ, andbs 3 ¼ ðs1 ; h1 Þ respectively, while the
cloudY4 is converted by the linguistic variables1 .

Table 1
The advantages and disadvantages of the existing models and the proposed model.

Description Linguistic variable (Zadeh, 2-Dimension linguistic variables Cloud model (Li et al., Model converting linguistic The proposed model
1975) (Zhu et al., 2009) 1995) variable to cloud model
(Wang and Feng, 2005)

Advantages It accords with the human It accords with the human It can depict the It accords with the human It accords with the human
cognitive habits, and can cognitive habits, and can depictfuzziness and cognitive habits, and can cognitive habits, at the same time
depict the fuzziness. The the fuzziness and considers the randomness depict the fuzziness and considers the reliability of the
calculation process is simultaneously. The
reliability of the given evaluation randomness simultaneously. given evaluation result. And it can
simple and the decision calculation process is
result. The calculation process is Moreover, the decision cost depict the fuzziness and
cost is low. simple simple and the decision is low. randomness simultaneously.
cost is low.
Disadvantages It ignores the reliability of It fails to handle the randomness, It is not in accordance It ignores the reliability of Its calculation process is slightly
the given evaluation result and the decision cost is high. with the human the given evaluation result. complicated and the decision cost
and fails to handle the cognitive habits, and And its calculation process is is high.
randomness, ignores the reliability of slightly complicated
the given evaluation
result

3. Evaluation index system of China's PPP WTE incineration
projects risk assessment
PPP projects involve a large number of uncertain risks (Xu et al.,
2010), and CRFs identification is an essential phase in the project
risk management process (Hwang et al., 2013). In this section, the
CRFs for the risk assessment of PPP WTE incineration projects are
identified and classified, and then the classified CRFs are integrated
into an evaluation index system. Given that there is little study on
the risk management of PPP WTE incineration projects, a four-
phase procedure is adopted to establish the evaluation index sys-
tem for PPP WTE incineration projects in this paper.
Phase 1. Identifying risk factors of various PPP infrastructure
projects by literature review.
Considering that some risk factors are shared among various
countries and PPP infrastructure projects, literature concerning
with risk identification of international PPP infrastructure projects
is reviewed in this phase. A large number of studies have attempted
to identify risk factors in various PPP infrastructure projects, such as
water supply projects (Ameyaw and Chan, 2015), transport projects
(Garrido et al., 2017), green building projects (Zhao et al., 2016) and
WTE incineration projects (Xu et al., 2015). Risks identified in 15
literature about PPP infrastructure projects between 2007 and 2016
are first marked down, and then a total of 37 risk factors for PPP
projects are identified from the analyzed literature, as Table 2
shows.
Phase 2. Identifying CRFs of China's PPP WTE projects by case
study analysis.
The case study analysis draws on documented lessons and ex-
periences from projects that were stalled or terminated, completed
or in operation, which provides an effective means to identify and
understand factors that contribute to failure of the studied projects
(Ameyaw and Chan, 2015). In this phase, a thorough analysis of 12
PPP WTE incineration projects in China is conducted, and 11 risk
factors are identified from the analyzed cases, as shown in Table 3.
Phase 3. Selecting the CRFs by questionnaire survey.
After conducting the comprehensive literature review and case
study analysis, a total of 39 (9 risk factors are duplicate in the above
two steps) risk factors are gathered. Risk is generally characterized
by the severity of an adverse consequence that can result from an
action and the occurrence probability of the given adverse conse-
quence (Liu et al., 2010). A questionnaire survey method is adopted
to select the CRFs among the 39 identified risk factors, which has
been used frequently in the PPP risk management studies (Ameyaw
and Chan, 2015). The 39 identified risk factors are formulated into a
questionnaire for a survey. The objective of the questionnaire is to
require respondents to estimate the severity and the occurrence
 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617 607

Table 2
Risk factors associated with various PPP infrastructure projects.
a
No. Risk factors Reference Total

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1 Government intervention ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 6
2 Force majeure ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 6
3 Change in tax ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 6
4 Financing and refinancing risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 6
5 Change in interest rate ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5
6 Nationalization or expropriation ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5
7 Legal and policy risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5
8 Delay in approval and permits ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5
9 Organization and coordination risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5
10 Government corruption ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5
11 Environment risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5
12 Construction cost overrun ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
13 Inflation risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
14 Technical risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
15 Design or construction deficiencies ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
16 Unforeseen weather or geotechnical conditions ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
17 Land acquisition risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
18 Change in foreign exchange ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
19 Public opposition risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
20 Weak regulation system ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
21 Residual value risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
22 Low operation productivity ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
23 Prolonged construction period ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
24 Improper distribution of responsibilities and rights ✓ ✓ ✓ 3
25 Faulty demand forecasting ✓ ✓ ✓ 3
26 Improper operation and management ✓ ✓ ✓ 3
27 Payment risk ✓ ✓ ✓ 3
28 Infrastructures support lack risk ✓ ✓ ✓ 3
29 Government credit risk ✓ ✓ ✓ 3
30 Government decision-making risk ✓ ✓ ✓ 3
31 Slumping financial market ✓ ✓ ✓ 3
32 Industrial regulatory change ✓ ✓ 2
33 Early termination ✓ ✓ 2
34 Contract change risk ✓ ✓ 2
35 Poor contract design ✓ ✓ 2
36 Unstable government ✓ ✓ 2
37 Lack of PPP experience ✓ 1
a
References: 1 ¼ Medda (2007); 2 ¼ Maslyukivska (2007); 3 ¼ Xu et al. (2010); 4 ¼ Ke et al. (2010); 5 ¼ Hwang et al. (2013); 6 ¼ Ameyaw and Chan (2015); 7 ¼ Chou and
Pramudawardhani (2015); 8 ¼ Xu et al. (2015); 9 ¼ Zhao et al. (2016); 10 ¼ Sastoque et al. (2016).

Table 3
PPP WTE incineration cases and risk factors.
a
No. Risk factors Projects Total

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

1 Improper operation and management ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 6

2 MSW supply risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5
3 Public opposition risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5
4 Legal and policy risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
5 Environment risk ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 4
6 Payment risk ✓ ✓ ✓ 3
7 Government decision-making risk ✓ ✓ 2
8 Contract change risk ✓ ✓ 2
9 Infrastructures support lack risk ✓ 1
10 Technical risk ✓ 1
11 Revenue risk ✓ 1
a
Projects: I¼Beijing Liulitun; II¼Tianjin Shuanggang; III¼Shenzhen Pinghu; IV¼Shenzhen Nanshan; V ¼ Zhongshan Center Zutuan; VI¼Ningbo Fenglin; VII ¼ Zhengzhou
Yingjin; VIII¼Wuhan North Hankou; IX ¼ Anhui Wuhu; X ¼ Chongqing Tongxing; XI ¼ Jilin Siping; XII ¼ Kunming Wuhua.

probability of each risk factor. In order to get a high-quality result of
questionnaire, it is necessary to select potential respondents.
Considering that the number of professionals involved in the
implementation of MSW incineration projects in China is relatively
small, and the similarity between thermal power plant and WTE
incineration plant, the following three conditions are designed to
identify qualified respondents for this questionnaire:
 Workers who have at least three years working experience in
the PPP WTE incineration plants or thermal power plants
construction.
 Project managers who have managed at least one PPP WTE
incineration project or thermal power plants construction.
 Scholars who have published at least one paper in international
journals related to the PPP projects risk management.
608 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617

The opinions of these qualified respondents provide an insight
to risks in PPP WTE incineration projects. Moreover, a 7-point scale
is defined for this evaluation (where 1 ¼ extremely low; 2 ¼ very
low; 3 ¼ low; 4 ¼ fair; 5 ¼ high; 6 ¼ very high and 7 ¼ extremely
high). Through visiting some completed MSW incineration plants
and thermal power projects as well as sending E-mail to scholars, a
total of 200 questionnaires are sent out, and feedback from 31
workers, 5 project managers and 17 scholars are received, yielding a
response rate of 26.5%, which meets the norm of 20e30% of most
questionnaire surveys in the construction industry (Akintoye,
2000). Then, a mean score ranking technique, which is a normal
technique used to analyze the results obtained by questionnaire
surveys, is employed to select the CRFs.
Firstly, the mean score (MS) for each risk factor with respect to
their occurrence probability and severity degree is calculated by Eq.
(2) (Chan and Kumaraswamy, 1996)
P
ðf  sÞ
MS ¼ ; ð1  MS  7Þ
N
where s is the score given to each risk factor by the respondents,
ranging from 1 to 7; f is the frequency of each rating for each risk
factor; andN is the total number of responses concerning a partic-
ular risk factor
Secondly, after calculating the probability and severity mean
score, the ‘Impact’ of a risk factor can be calculated by Eq. (3) (Chan
et al., 2014)
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Impact ¼ probability  severity
Thirdly, the risk factors can be ranked based on their ‘Impact’
values. The ‘Impact’ values and ranking results are shown in Table 4.
The risk factors with normalized impact values 0:5are deemed as
‘CRF’.
Phase 4. Constructing the evaluation index system.
In this phase, the 14 selected CRFs are divided into four cate-
gories according to their relation, including the construction and
operation risk, the macro-economic risk, the legal and socio-
political risk and the government risk. Then, the evaluation index
system of China's PPP WTE incineration projects risk assessment is
constructed and shown in Fig. 3.
in Fig. 4. A risk assessment committee is set up consisting of deci-
sion makers, risk managers of different level, inquiry panel, risk
evaluation panel and calculation panel. It is inevitable that the
views of these members of panel are different. So, the Delphi
technique, developed by the RAND Corporation during the 1950s
and 60s, is adopted since a consensus among them is needed. The
key elements are: 1) anonymous responses by experts to multiple
rounds of formal questionnaires; 2) an exercise incorporating
iterative, controlled feedback with respect to the information pro-
vided at each round; and 3) summary of the group's responses. The
technique is designed to minimize the influence of dominant in-
dividuals, group pressure, and irrelevant communication and to
reduce noise.
The corresponding tasks of different roles have been stated
explicitly during the three phases, which will greatly improve
management efficiency and quality in practice.
Stage 1. Determining several feasible projects.
(2)
First of all, the decision makers screen out a number of projects
in the most promising provinces based on the information of the
MSW amount and electricity demand in various provinces of China.
Then, according to feasible reports and combining with the budget
and expected return of the firm, they further choose the projects
which are economically feasible. The aim of this stage is to elimi-
nate inferior projects and keep a number of “qualified” sites. The
benefits would be twofold. On the one hand, the complexity and
difficulty of decision-making can be reduced partly; on the other
(3) hand, nonsense and useless work can be avoided.
Stage 2. Constructing the evaluation index system.
In the second stage, two tasks need to be completed: 1) gath-
ering the risk factors for PPP WTE incineration projects through
literature review and case study analysis; 2) selecting CRFs from the
gathered risk factors via questionnaire survey. The questionnaire
designed by the inquiry panel aims to collect the experience of
project managers and workers as well as the knowledge of scholar.
Stage 3. Ranking the projects based on the proposed method.

In the third stage, the detailed steps of ranking the feasible

4. A risk assessment framework for PPP WTE incineration projects are summarized as follows.
projects
Step 1. Assigning the 2-dimension linguistic variables of each
In this section, a three-stage decision framework for PPP WTE project on each risk criterion.
incineration projects risk assessment is established and presented

Table 4
Risk factor with normalized impact values. 0:5
a
CRFs Probability Severity Impact Ranking Normalization

Public opposition 6.07 6.13 6.10 1 1.00

Insufficient MSW supply 5.62 6.35 5.97 2 0.96
Improper operation and management 6.18 5.34 5.74 3 0.88
Payment risk 5.88 5.41 5.64 4 0.84
Technical risk 5.91 5.23 5.56 5 0.81
Environment risk 5.81 5.32 5.56 6 0.81
Government corruption 5.67 5.34 5.50 7 0.79
Legal and policy risk 4.67 6.03 5.31 8 0.72
Government decision-making risk 4.68 5.63 5.13 9 0.66
Government credit risk 4.64 5.62 5.11 10 0.65
Lack of PPP experience 5.83 4.22 4.96 11 0.60
Government intervention 4.09 5.75 4.85 12 0.56
Lack of infrastructures support 4.55 5.07 4.80 13 0.55
Revenue risk 5.62 4.07 4.69 14 0.51
a
Normalized value¼ (actual impact value-minimum impact value)/(maximum impact value-minimum impact value).
 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617 609

Technique risk (C11)

Environmental risk (C12)

Insufficient MSW supply (C13)

Constructtion and operation risk
Lack of Infrastructures support (C14)
Improper operation and management
(C15)
Lack of PPP experience (C16)

Payment risk (C21)

WTE incineration projects

Macro-economic risk
risk assessment

Revenue risk (C22)

Public opposition (C31)

Legal and socio-political risk
Legal and policy risk (C32)

Government corruption (C41)

Government credit risk (C42)

Government risk
Government intervention (C43)
Government decision-making risk
(C44)
Goal Groups Cr iteria

Fig. 3. Evaluation index system for risk assessment of China's PPP WTE incineration projects.

Experts from the evaluation panel are responsible to assess the
performance of each project on each risk criterion. Before the ex-
perts assign the 2-dimension linguistic variable, generally it is
necessary to set an appropriate linguistic assessment set in advance
(Liu and Yu, 2014).
The calculation tasks in following steps are undertaken by the
calculation panel.
(Wang et al., 2014a) is utilized to this aggregation process.
Let Yi ðExi ; Eni ; Hei Þ ði ¼ 1; 2; :::; nÞ be a collection of
clouds,u ¼ ðu1 ; u2 ; :::; uk Þ be the weight vector of experts and
Pk
i¼1 ui ¼ 1. Then their collective values with the use of the CWAA
is shown as follows (Wang et al., 2014a).

X rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 
k Xn 2 Xn 2
CWAAu ðY1 ; Y2 ; :::; Yn Þ ¼ u Ex ;
i¼1 i i i¼1 i
u Eni ; i¼1 i
u Hei (4)

Step 2. Converting the 2-dimension linguistic variables into Step 4. Calculating performance scores of each project on each
clouds Yi ðExi ; Eni ; Hei Þ by using the new conversion model. criterion.

Using the new conversion model as stated in definition 4 to The Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solu-
convert the decision-making information in the form of 2- tion (TOPSIS) method is employed to calculate the performance
dimension linguistic variables b
s ¼ ðsi ; hj Þ, into clouds, denoted scores. The basic principle of TOPSIS is that the chosen alternative
asYi ðExi ; Eni ; Hei Þ. should have the shortest distance from positive-ideal solution and
farthest from the negative-ideal solution. Firstly, let Yi ðExi ; Eni ; Hei Þ
Step 3. Aggregating the evaluation values of each expert into a ði ¼ 1; 2; :::; nÞ be a collection of clouds, and the positive and
collective value. negative ideal clouds can be obtained by Eq. (5) as follows:

After the 2-dimension linguistic variables are converted to yþ ¼ ðmaxExi ; minEni ; minHei Þ; y ¼ ðminExi ; maxEni ; maxHei Þ
clouds, an aggregation operator must be performed for a collective
(5)
value. The cloud weighted arithmetic averaging (CWAA) operator
610 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617

Stage 1
Determining several
feasible projects Identifying prospective WTE Feasibility report
incineration projects Firm strategy

Figuring out several feasible projects

Decision
makers for further risk assessment

Stage 2
Constructing a evaluation Literature review
index system Identifying the risk factors
Case study analysis

Questionnaire
Inquiry Selecting the CRFs
panel survey

Classifying the CRFs and

Constructing a evaluation index
system

Stage 3
Ranking the projects
based on the proposed Assigning the 2-dimension linguistic
Evaluation
method variables of projects on each criteria panel

Converting the 2-dimension

The new model
linguistic variables into clouds
Determining the
Low-level weights and
risk managers correlations of criteria Aggregating the evaluation values
of each expert into a collective CWAA operator
value

Calculating performance scores of

Calculation
projects on each criterion panel

Aggregating the collective values

CCI operator
of each criterion into one result

High-level Ranking the projects

risk managers

Decision Selecting the optimal one

makers

Fig. 4. Risk assessment framework for PPP WTE incineration projects.

Then, using the normal cloud generator (Li et al., 2009) to Step 5. Aggregating the collective values of each criterion into
calculate the size of clouds. Next, the performance score of each one result.
project can be determined by Ri, which is defined as follows:
Because there are correlations among the risk criteria, the CCI
operator is utilized in this aggregation process. First, the low-level
risk managers determine the weights of the criteria and the cor-
si  s
R*i ¼ (6) relation coefficient among the criteria. Then, the fuzzy densities are
sþ  s
deduced by the calculation panel. Finally, the collective values of
where si is the size of each cloud, while sþ and s are the sizes of each criterion are aggregated into one result by utilizing the CCI
positive and negative ideal clouds respectively. The larger R*i is, the operator.
better the project will be.
Step 6. Ranking the projects.
The objects of this step are to: 1) help decision makers to further
understand the performance of several feasible projects on each
Using Eqs. (5) and (6), overall performance scores of each
risk factor, and in which way decision makers can make a more
project is calculated based on the idea of the TOPSIS, and then the
rational selection; and 2) provide guidance for policy makers to
projects are ranked according to the overall performance scores.
take corresponding measures to eliminate or mitigate the identi-
fied high risks (as far as is reasonable) in an effort to draw more
Step 7. Selecting the optimal one.
potential investors.
 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617 611

Fig. 5. (a) MSW collected amount of various provinces; (b) Electricity demand quantity of various provinces (Data source: Web of Nation Bureau of Statistics of China: http://www.
stats.gov.cn/).

The high-level risk managers analyze the advantages and dis- Table 6
advantages of projects, and feedback the result to decision makers. 2-Dimension linguistic information given by the expertE1 .

The decision makers then determine the optimal PPP WTE incin- Criteria A1 A2 A3 A4
eration project through analyzing and discussing the evaluation C11 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ
result. C12 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs0 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C13 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ
C14 ðs0 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
5. Empirical demonstration C15 ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C16 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs0 ; h1 Þ
C21 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
With the Chinese government actively supporting the WTE
C22 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ
incineration industry, a risk investment firm located in Beijing, C31 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
China is going to invest in WTE incineration projects. The MSW C32 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs0 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
amount and electricity demand quantity of ten Chinese represen- C41 ðs0 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
tative provinces are reviewed (Fig. 5a and b). Considering that there C42 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
are large amounts of MSW and high electricity demand in Guang- C43 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C44 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs0 ; h0 Þ
dong and Jiangsu province, the decision makers of this firm hold
that the two provinces are ideal for WTE business.
The risk evaluation panel includes three experts Ek ðk ¼ 1; 2; 3Þ
whose academic backgrounds are project management and ther- weighting (SAW) technique is employed to obtain the overall score
moelectricity fields. After consulting the decision makers, three of the potential projects. Finally, a ranking result is got according to
economic indicators are selected to screen these projects that are their overall scores.
total investment, internal rate of return and payback period. After After the project selection, the top four projects are screened
that, the weights of the three indicators are calculated as (0.3, 0.3, out, and labeled as A1 ; A2 ; A3 ; A4 . The general engineering charac-
0.4) using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique. Then, the teristics of the four projects are given in Table 5.
corresponding values of the potential projects are collected from Firstly, as the criteria involved are all the cost type (a lower value
the approved feasibility study reports. Then, simple additive is better), the I class linguistic set is defined in descending order to

Table 5
General engineering characteristics of the four projects.

Engineering characteristics Project

A1 A2 A3 A4

Location Huishan district, Wuxi city, Huqiu district, Suzhou city, Jinwan district, Zhuhai city, Longhu district, Shantou city,
Jiangsu province Jiangsu province Guangdong province Guangdong province
Land area (square meters) 235600 187000 346000 209000
Waste disposal 400 233 346 292
capacity(thousand tons/
year)
Installed capacity (MW) 2*12 2*9 1*20 1*15
Total investment (billion RMB) 0.363 0.277 0.428 0.315
Internal rate of return (%) 9.61 8.29 8.62 8.47
Payback period (year) 9.15 8.32 9.27 8.46
612 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617

simplify the calculation. The I class linguistic set and II class lin-
Table 7
guistic set are shown as follows. 2-Dimension linguistic information given by the expertE2 .

Criteria A1 A2 A3 A4
SI ¼ ðs2 ¼ very high; s1 ¼ high; s0 ¼ fair; s1 ¼ low; s2
C11 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ
¼ very lowÞ; C12 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs0 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C13 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C14 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs0 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ
HII ¼ ðh1 ¼ partial confident; h0 ¼ familiar confident; h1 C15 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ
C16 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ
¼ fully confidentÞ
C21 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ
C22 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ
The performances of projects on each criterion are assessed by
C31 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
the three experts with 2-dimension linguistic variables, as shown C32 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
in Tables 6e8 respectively. C41 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
Secondly, in this case U ¼ ½0; 100, k ¼ 1. The 2-dimension lin- C42 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
guistic variables given above are all transformed into clouds, as C43 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ
C44 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
shown in Tables 9e11 respectively.
Thirdly, according to the knowledge background of the three
experts, their weight vector is determined as ð0:35; 0:3;0:35Þ. Then Table 8
the evaluation information of each expert is aggregated into a 2-Dimension linguistic information given by the expertE3 .
collective value, as shown in Table 12. Criteria A1 A2 A3 A4
Fourthly, the performance of the four projects on each criterion
C11 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
is calculated by utilizing Eqs. (5) and (6), which is shown in Fig. 6. C12 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs0 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ
Fifthly, the weights of the criteria are obtained by the AHP C13 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ
method and showed in Table 13. C14 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs0 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
The correlation coefficient matrixes are constructed as follows. C15 ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C16 ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ
C21 ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C22 ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs0 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ
C31 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C32 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ
C41 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs0 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C42 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
C43 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ
C44 ðs2 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ

In order to clearly specify the calculation process, the proj-

ectA1 with respect to the groupC4is taken as an example. First of all,
the fuzzy densities are calculated according to the correlation co-
efficient matrix between every two criteria, which are shown as
follows.

mðC41Þ ¼ 0:2587; mðC42Þ ¼ 0:213; mðC43Þ ¼ 0:2241; mðC44Þ

¼ 0:2809; mðC41; C42Þ ¼ 0:4781; mðC41; C43Þ
¼ 0:4923; mðC41; C44Þ ¼ 0:5429; mðC42; C43Þ
¼ 0:4393; mðC42; C44Þ ¼ 0:4961; mðC43; C44Þ
¼ 0:5051; mðC41; C42; C43Þ
¼ 0:7137; mðC41; C42; C44Þ
¼ 0:7643; mðC41; C43; C44Þ ¼ 0:7764; mðC42; C43; C44Þ
¼ 0:7223; mðC41; C42; C43; C44Þ ¼ 1:

Then, according to the CCI operator, the C41; C42; C43 and C44
are aggregated intoC4. The corresponding cloud variables of A1
with respect to C4 are shown as follows.
By the normal cloud generator, the sizes of four clouds are listed
in an effective order as below:
Y41 ð25:8302Þ > Y44 ð21:9155Þ > Y42 ð20:2492Þ > Y43 ð6:6126Þ,
then:
 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617 613

ExA1 ðC4Þ ¼ mfC41; C42; C43; C44g  Ex43 þ mfC41; C42; C44g  ðEx42  Ex43 Þ þ mfC41; C44g  ðEx44  Ex43 Þ þ mfC41g  ðEx41  Ex44 Þ
¼ 1  21:63 þ 0:7643  ð44:92  21:63Þ þ 0:5429  ð55:73  44:92Þ þ 0:2587  50:96
¼ 44:0632

vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 ffi
u
u mfC41; C42; C43; C44g  En2 þ mfC41; C42; C44g  En2 þ En2
u  43
  43
 42
EnA1 ðC4Þ ¼ t
þmfC41; C44g  En244 þ En243 þ mfC41g  En241 þ En244
¼ 30:9031

vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 
u
u mfC41; C42; C43; C44g  He2 þ mfC41; C42; C44g  He2 þ He2
u  43
  43
 42
HeA1 ðC4Þ ¼ t
þmfC41; C44g  He244 þ He243 þ mfC41g  He241 þ He244
¼ 7:7284

government should also guarantee supplying the waste required by

the concessionaire in accordance with the concession agreement
At last, the corresponding cloud variables of A1 ; A2 ; A3 ; A4 are signed by both sides (Xu et al., 2015). For the legal and policy risk,
calculated and listed in Table 14. the local government should perfect the relative legislations and
Thus, the ranking result isA4 > A1 > A2 > A3 . policies to effectively ensure their implement. In addition, there are
To depict the result vividly, the four corresponding clouds are changes of legislations and policies resulted from the inconsistency
presented in Fig. 7. between the central and local policies (Song et al., 2013). The local
It can be seen from Table 13 that the Ex value of A4 is far larger government should make a commitment that their legislations and
than other projects and itsEn value and He value are quite small. It policies will be fully consistent with the central ones. Only in this
implies that the overall risk of A4 is very low and with less fluctu- way can the local government ensure the smooth progress of the
ation. On the contrary, although A1 ranks the second with respect to project and attract more potential investors, so as to promote local
the overall performance score (R* ), its En value and He value are economic development.
relatively high, which proofs that the risk of project A1 is not stable.
As for project A2 and A3 , their overall performance scores are to too 6. Comparison analysis
small compared to the optimal project A4 , which demonstrates the
overall risks of them are very high. Therefore, both A2 and A3 are In order to verify the correctness and demonstrate the advan-
not competitive. tages of the proposed method, a comparison analysis is conducted
Through analyzing the result, the optimal project is A4 , followed with an existing method, that is 2-dimension linguistic computa-
by A1. However, as illustrated in Fig. 7, the performances of project tional model based on a 2-dimension uncertain linguistic power
A4 onC13(insufficient MSW supply) and C32(legal and policy risk) generalized weighted aggregation (2DLPGWA) operator (Liu and
are very poor. Fortunately, the two poor performances can be Yu, 2014). Liu and Yu (2014) proposed a 2DLPGWA operator, and
improved by some measures taken by the local government. To then a method based on this operator is employed to the MCDM
mitigate the insufficient MSW supply risk effectively, the local problems in which the criteria values take the form of 2-dimension
government should make in-depth and careful studies on the uncertain linguistic information. To make the results comparable,
amount of MSW collected, the population of project service area, the 2-dimension uncertain linguistic variable bs ¼ ð½sa ; sb ; ½hc :hd Þ is
the level of economic development in the feasibility study period, degraded to a 2-dimension linguistic variable b
s ¼ ðsa ; hc Þ in the case
so as to ensure the design capacity of MSW incineration project of a ¼ b;c ¼ d. The comparison analysis is based on the illustrative
coincides with the actual situation. On the other hand, the local example introduced in Sect. 5. A three-step procedure is conducted

Table 9
Clouds transformed by the 2-dimension linguistic information given by the expertE1 .

Criteria A1 A2 A3 A4

C11 ð30:9; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ
C12 ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð0; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð50; 5:9; 1:5Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C13 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð0; 10:3; 2:62Þ
C14 ð50; 3:93; 1Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C15 ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C16 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð50; 3:93; 1Þ
C21 ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ
C22 ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ
C31 ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð0; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C32 ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð50; 3:93; 1Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C41 ð50; 5:9; 1:5Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C42 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ ð0; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C43 ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C44 ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð50; 5:9; 1:5Þ
614 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617

Table 10
Clouds transformed by the 2-dimension linguistic information given by the expertE2 .

Criteria A1 A2 A3 A4

C11 ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ
C12 ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð0; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð50; 5:9; 1:5Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C13 ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð0; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C14 ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð50; 3:93; 1Þ ð30:9; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ
C15 ð0; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ
C16 ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ
C21 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ
C22 ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ
C31 ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C32 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C41 ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C42 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C43 ð0; 30:91; 7:85Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ
C44 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð0; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ

Table 11
Clouds transformed by the 2-dimension linguistic information given by the expertE3 .

Criteria A1 A2 A3 A4

C11 ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð0; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C12 ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð50; 11:8; 3Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ
C13 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ
C14 ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð50; 3:93; 1Þ ð30:9; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C15 ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C16 ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ
C21 ð100; 30:91; 7:85Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð30:9; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ
C22 ð0; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð50; 3:93; 1Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ
C31 ð69:1; 19:1; 4:85Þ ð0; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C32 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð0; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð0; 10:3; 2:62Þ
C41 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð69:1; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð50; 5:9; 1:5Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C42 ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð0; 30:91; 7:85Þ ð0; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C43 ð30:9; 19:1; 4:85Þ ð0; 30:91; 7:85Þ ð30:9; 19:1; 4:85Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ
C44 ð0; 15:45; 3:93Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð100; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ

Table 12
Expert group aggregation.

Criteria A1 A2 A3 A4

C11 ð68:46; 7:97; 2:29Þ ð79:92; 8:87; 2:26Þ ð31:55; 7:97; 2:03Þ ð78:37; 8:83; 2:25Þ
C12 ð44:27; 12:41; 3:15Þ ð24:19; 13:68; 3:48Þ ð50; 8:22; 2:15Þ ð44:27; 7:64; 1:94Þ
C13 ð57:64; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð45:82; 9:12; 2:32Þ ð55:73; 8:57; 2:18Þ ð55:73; 11:53; 2:93Þ
C14 ð82:5; 8:62; 2:19Þ ð43:32; 4:92; 1:25Þ ð30:9; 8:57; 2:18Þ ð78:37; 7:76; 1:97Þ
C15 ð70; 14:1; 3:59Þ ð30:9; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð78:37; 7:76; 1:97Þ ð69:1; 7:47; 1:9Þ
C16 ð89:19; 11:38; 2:9Þ ð89:19; 9:12; 2:32Þ ð55:73; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð82:5; 7:47; 1:9Þ
C21 ð79:92; 21:78; 5:53Þ ð90:73; 13:39; 3:41Þ ð55:09; 9:01; 2:5Þ ð78:37; 18:08; 4:59Þ
C22 ð65; 12:35; 3:14Þ ð79:92; 7:97; 2:03Þ ð37:59; 5:64; 1:43Þ ð100; 15:45; 3:93Þ
C31 ð44:27; 12:41; 3:15Þ ð30; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð57:64; 8:72; 2:22Þ ð69:1; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C32 ð55:73; 6:37; 1:62Þ ð55:73; 11:74; 2:98Þ ð47:5; 10:99; 2:8Þ ð44:92; 7:97; 2:03Þ
C41 ð50:96; 6:05; 1:58Þ ð57:64; 9:55; 2:43Þ ð71:69; 10:66; 2:74Þ ð57:64; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C42 ð44:92; 7:97; 1:62Þ ð44:92; 23:91; 6:07Þ ð9:27; 13:39; 3:41Þ ð44:27; 6:37; 1:62Þ
C43 ð21:63; 20:7; 5:26Þ ð55:73; 19:97; 5:07Þ ð42:36; 15:85; 4:03Þ ð79:92; 11:19; 2:85Þ
C44 ð55:73; 11:53; 2:93Þ ð55:73; 7:64; 1:94Þ ð70; 10:3; 2:62Þ ð62:42; 6:21; 1:58Þ

for this comparison, which is elaborated as follows.
Step 1. Aggregating the evaluation valuesrijk of each expert by the
2DLPGWA operator and obtaining the overall values, as shown in
Table 15.
Step 2. Aggregating the overall values of each criterion by the
2DLPGWA operator and obtaining the comprehensive evaluation
values, as shown in Table 16.
Step 3. Calculating the expectations of the comprehensive
evaluation values.
EðA1 Þ ¼ 0:046; EðA2 Þ ¼ 0:022; EðA3 Þ ¼ 0:001; EðA4 Þ ¼ 0:055:
The ranking result of the four projects isA4 > A1 > A2 > A3 , which
is the same as the one gained by the proposed method. The cor-
rectness of the proposed method in the paper can be proved.
Actually, a significant shortcoming of Liu and Yu's method (2014) is
that the 2-dimension linguistic computational model based on the
2DLPGWA operator utilizes the minimizing operation to aggregate
the self-assessment of the experts. In others words, once a certain
expert is “partial confident” on his/her own evaluation result, the
result of group aggregation is “partial confident”, as shown in
Table 15. Obviously, it will lead to information distortion and loss.
By contrast, the main advantages of the proposed method mainly
lie in the following:
 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617 615

entropy and hyper entropy of clouds. In this way, the pro-

posed method can depict the randomness of qualitative in-
formation perfectly, which greatly improves the decision
quality. However, the Liu and Yu's method (2014) ignores the
randomness of qualitative information.
(ii) It reasonably measures the correlations among the decision
criteria. The CCI operator, which combines the cloud model
and Choquet integral with respect 2-order additive fuzzy
measure, is utilized to handle the correlations among the
decision criteria perfectly. It not only considers the object
information of criteria, but also takes into account the
inherent relationship between criteria in practical situations,
which fails to be considered by Liu and Yu's method (2014)
instead.

7. Conclusions, contributions, limitations and outlooks

Fig. 6. Performances of the four projects on each criterion. 7.1. Conclusions

This paper builds a risk assessment framework of PPP waste-to-

Table 13 energy incineration projects under 2-dimension linguistic envi-
Weights of the criteria. ronment. Firstly, an evaluation index system of the China's MSW
C1 (0.2447) C2 (0.2167) C3 (0.2593) C4 (0.2793) incineration projects risk assessment is established based on liter-
C11(0.1737) C21(0.4855) C31(0.4937) C41(0.2682)
ature review, case study analysis and questionnaire survey. A total
C12(0.1499) C21(0.5145) C32(0.5063) C42(0.2183) of 37 risk factors influencing the PPP WTE incineration projects in
C13(0.2026) C43(0.2299) China through literature review and case study are identified, and
C14(0.1416) C44(0.2836) 14 critical factors are selected and classified into 4 groups based on
C15(0.1843
the results of the performed questionnaire survey. The results show
C16(0.1479)
that the “public opposition”, “insufficient MSW supply” and
“improper operation” are the top three risk factors regarding their
impact index. Secondly, a conversion model between the 2-
Table 14
The relevant parameters of the four projects. dimension linguistic variables and clouds is proposed by convert-
ing the II-dimensional linguistic information into the entropy and
Parameter Project
hyper entropy of clouds. Compared with existing models, it has
A1 A2 A3 A4 several advantages: 1) it accords with the human cognitive habits,
Ex 57.12 57.02 49.56 67.19 and at the same time considers the reliability of the given evalua-
En 50.51 58.86 43.91 37.14 tion result; 2) it is able to fully describe the uncertainty of infor-
He 12.73 14.99 11.19 9.38 mation through considering both randomness and fuzziness. It's
s 11.3736 10.6347 10.6200 15.5907
remarkable that the linguistic variable transformed by the classical
R* 0.313 0.202 0.200 0.945
model is proved to be the special cases of the 2-dimension lin-
guistic variable transformed by the proposed model. Thirdly,
considering that there are surely correlations among the decision
criteria involved in PPP MSW incineration projects risk assessment,
the CCI operator is utilized to aggregate the decision information.
Fourthly, a risk assessment framework integrating ideas of man-
agement for PPP MSW incineration projects is constructed based on

Table 15
Overall values of the four projects with respect to each criterion.

Criteria A1 A2 A3 A4

C11 ðs0:76 ; h1 Þ ðs1:35 ; h0 Þ ðs0:76 ; h1 Þ ðs1:3 ; h0 Þ

C12 ðs0:3 ; h1 Þ ðs0:95 ; h0 Þ ðs0 ; h1 Þ ðs0:31 ; h0 Þ
C13 ðs0:42 ; h1 Þ ðs0:3 ; h1 Þ ðs0:29 ; h0 Þ ðs0:33 ; h0 Þ
C14 ðs1:32 ; h1 Þ ðs0:34 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ ðs1:3 ; h1 Þ
C15 ðs0:84 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs1:3 ; h1 Þ ðs1 ; h0 Þ
C16 ðs1:64 ; h0 Þ ðs1:66 ; h1 Þ ðs0:32 ; h1 Þ ðs1:29 ; h0 Þ
C21 ðs1:35 ; h1 Þ ðs1:7 ; h0 Þ ðs0:02 ; h0 Þ ðs1:3 ; h1 Þ
C22 ðs0:64 ; h0 Þ ðs1:34 ; h1 Þ ðs0:66 ; h1 Þ ðs2 ; h0 Þ
C31 ðs0:3 ; h1 Þ ðs0:88 ; h1 Þ ðs0:41 ; h0 Þ ðs1 ; h1 Þ
Fig. 7. Final clouds of the four projects.
C32 ðs0:32 ; h1 Þ ðs0:29 ; h1 Þ ðs0:13 ; h0 Þ ðs0:01 ; h1 Þ
C41 ðs0:05 ; h0 Þ ðs0:4 ; h0 Þ ðs0:95 ; h0 Þ ðs0:41 ; h1 Þ
C42 ðs1 ; h1 Þ ðs0 ; h1 Þ ðs1:7 ; h0 Þ ðs0:32 ; h1 Þ
(i) It depicts the randomness of qualitative information. The II- C43 ðs1:3 ; h1 Þ ðs0:29 ; h1 Þ ðs0:39 ; h1 Þ ðs1:35 ; h0 Þ
dimensional linguistic information is integrated into the C44 ðs0:3 ; h0 Þ ðs0:31 ; h0 Þ ðs0:88 ; h1 Þ ðs0:65 ; h1 Þ
616 Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 183 (2018) 602e617
Table 16
Comprehensive evaluation values of the four projects.
A1 A2 A3
ðs0:682 ; h1 Þ ðs0:334 ; h1 Þ ðs0:012 ; h1 Þ
above three points. Fifthly, a case study in China is carried out to
illustrate the applicability of the proposed framework. The result
shows the project A4 is the optimal one with minimum risk. Last
but not least, a comparison analysis with an existing method is also
conducted to prove the correctness and effectiveness of the pro-
posed method.
7.2. Contributions
The contributions of this study are multifaceted. Therefore, the
target audiences of this study are extensive. Firstly, this study
measures the impact of every risk factor quantitatively, and es-
tablishes an evaluation index system for PPP WTE incineration
projects which decomposes the objective into several operable
evaluation indexes. This contribution helps the risk managers
better understand each risk factor, and to improve quality in
practice. Secondly, this study proposes a conversion model be-
tween the 2-dimension linguistic variables and clouds that com-
bines the advantages of both. This contribution will attract
attention from researchers who study the 2-dimension linguistic
variable or cloud model. Thirdly, the study specifies the tasks of
decision makers, risk managers and various expert panels to reduce
the duplication of effort and improve efficiency. This will help de-
cision makers of investment firms with the improvement of man-
agement efficiency. Fourthly, the study provides not only the
performance scores of projects under the over goal, but also that
under the criteria. This merit can help the decision makers to
analyze the merits and demerits of various projects clearly, so as to
make more reasonable decisions. It also provides enough infor-
mation for local government to raise awareness and prompt cor-
responding action to guard against the potential risks, and thus to
attract investors.
7.3. Limitations and outlooks
Despite some contributions have been made, there are still some
limitations in this study. Firstly, the risk preferences of decision
makers are not considered. Since decision makers’ risk preferences
have a great influence on the decision results, the accuracy of
describing the risk preferences is a long-term goal to pursue. Sec-
ondly, it lacks the big data processing capability. With the
increasing number of projects, the decision information to be
processed will increases exponentially. Thus, enhancing the
computing ability of the proposed model is admirable. In future
research, we are going to introduce some psychological behavior
theories, such as prospect theory, is going be introduced to take into
account the risk preferences of decision makers. Moreover, intelli-
gent algorithms such as artificial intelligence and deep learning will
also be combined to assess risks of thousands of projects.
The study has a wide range of applicability. It is not limited to
the regions in China, but other areas worldwide are also applicable.
Because the proposed risk assessment framework for PPP WTE
incineration projects and the proposed transformation model is
universally applicable. The potential inapplicability may lie in the
selected critical risk factors since they are largely influenced by the
national conditions and vary from country to country. Therefore, in
the practical management problems, the managers should pay
more attention to the suitability of the evaluation index system.
Moreover, it is worth noting that this proposed method is appli-
cable to many other MCDM problems, such as: construction project
A4 selection, material supplier selection and many other areas of
ðs0:829 ; h1 Þ
management decision-making problems or strategy selection
problems.
Acknowledgements
Project supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (NO. 2017XS099, NO. 2016MS70, NO.
2018ZD14), the 2017 Special Project of Cultivation and Develop-
ment of Innovation Base (NO. Z171100002217024), the NCEPU
“Double First-Class” Graduate Talent Cultivation Program and the
Research Funds of Beijing Social Science (16GLC069).
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