A green supplier evaluation system based on a new multi-criteria sorting method: VIKORSORT

•A new sorting method based on VIKOR is proposed.•The proposed method is employed to evaluate the suppliers’ environmental performance.•The results proved the efficiency of the proposed method.•The method has a great potential to be applied in different domains. Depleting natural resources and limited amount of landfill areas have forced many governments to impose stricter measures on environmental performance. In order to comply with those measures and to have a better environmental image, companies are investing heavily in environmental, social and economic responsibility issues. Moreover, they continuously track the environmental performance of their suppliers. Many green supplier evaluation and ranking methodologies were proposed in the literature in order to assist companies in the environmental performance evaluation of suppliers. However, the number of studies on the sorting of suppliers based on environmental criteria is very limited. In this study, we fill this research gap by proposing a novel VIKOR-based green supplier sorting methodology called VIKORSORT. This methodology evaluates the environmental performance of suppliers and sorts them into the predefined ordered classes. The proposed methodology can easily be embedded into an expert system which can suggest a suitable green supplier development program for each class.