Many corporations and nations have pledged to reach net-zero emissions
within a few decades. Meeting such targets for greenhouse gases,
plastics, etc. requires systematic methods to guide investment in
technologies and value-chain alternatives, and develop roadmaps. The
proposed framework is a multi-period planning model to guide optimal
reforms in cradle-to-cradle life-cycle networks across the time horizon.
It aims to meet environmental targets while minimizing the total
annualized marginal cost of natural resources and the investment cost
associated with adoption of novel technologies. This considers the
evolution of technology readiness levels as S-curves or continuous time
Markov-chains. Integrated Assessment models account for climate change,
decarbonization due to energy mix changes, and carbon taxes. Multiple
climate change scenarios and shared socioeconomic pathways are used to
model the future. In addition to providing roadmaps, the outputs can
also be used to identify technologies that will be robust to future
scenarios.