An integrated multi-criteria decision-making framework for the selection of sustainable biodegradable polymer for food packaging applications

The increasing demand for environmentally sustainable food packaging has driven research toward biodegradable polymers as alternatives to conventional plastics. This study develops an integrated hybrid multi-criteria decision-making framework to identify the most suitable biodegradable polymer for food packaging applications. Five polymers—polylactic acid (PLA), polybutylene succinate, polybutylene adipate terephthalate, polycaprolactone, and polyhydroxybutyrate—were evaluated using six key criteria: environmental impact, barrier properties, mechanical performance, cost, food safety compliance, and biodegradability. The proposed framework integrates TOPSIS, GRA, CoCoSo, TOPSIS–PSI, and TOPSIS–GRA models to enhance decision robustness and reliability. The results consistently identified PLA as the most optimal material across all methods, primarily due to its favorable balance of cost, barrier performance, and biodegradability. Sensitivity and correlation analyses confirmed the stability of the ranking outcomes, demonstrating that the proposed hybrid approach provides a comprehensive, reliable tool for sustainable material selection in food packaging industries.