Prioritising criteria for sustainable battery supplier selection in the EV sector using fuzzy-ordinal priority approach

PurposeFocusing on the emerging economies, this study proposes a comprehensive framework for selecting sustainable battery suppliers in the electric vehicle (EV) industry. The study examines how EV manufacturers can prioritise battery suppliers to create a robust and eco-friendly supply chain.Design/methodology/approachThis study integrates the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework and the dynamic capability (DC) theory to develop a robust and comprehensive framework for the evaluation of battery suppliers. The fuzzy ordinal priority approach (OPA-F) is used to prioritise the criteria and sub-criteria finalised under the integrated framework. Fuzzy linear programming problems are formulated under this approach with the linguistic opinion of experts as the input parameters. To obtain the global weight of sub-criteria, multiplicative aggregation is performed on the defuzzified local weights of criteria and sub-criteria.FindingsAs per the findings of this study, the battery policy adherence, environment compliance and safety certification emerged as the most important sub-criteria, whereas the liquidity ratio, debt-to-equity ratio and creditworthiness emerged as the least important. These reveal that the environment and technological criteria have great influence on battery supplier selection decisions.Originality/valueBy utilising OPA-F and combining the TOE framework and DC theory, this study offers a theoretical and practical contribution that enables efficient decision-making. The framework provides manufacturers and policymakers with practical insights on improving operational resilience and sustainability in EV battery supply chains, particularly in emerging markets.