Evaluating challenges of implementing Industry 5.0 in the renewable energy supply chain toward sustainability: A comparative analysis using decision-making approaches

The Renewable Energy (RE) supply chain faces challenges such as infrastructure constraints, and dependence on weather conditions, which affect production stability. Also, high initial costs and unstable support policies create significant financial barriers in RE. Using the capabilities of new technologies can help improve productivity in this field. Industry 5.0 (I5.0) uses developed technology to optimize processes, increase stability, reduce costs, and increase productivity in RE. Therefore, a decision-making framework is presented to assess the challenges of I5.0 in the RE supply chain. It proposes an integrated decision framework including the Fuzzy Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (F-SWARA), and Fuzzy Combined Compromise Solution (F-CoCoSo) methods. The sensitivity of the findings and validation are checked with different decision-making approaches. Appropriate investment amount, attention to technical infrastructure, and the availability of financial resources are the most important factors with values of 0.236, 0.172, and 0.129 respectively. The main challenges are insufficient investment and attention to information security for implementing I5.0 in the RE supply chain. Measures and financial incentives for the development of internal and external cooperation and data security measures, advanced encryption protocols, and basic security and cyber actions are necessary to attract investment and create a safe environment.