Introduction: Increasing environmental pressures, institutional requirements, and global competitiveness have compelled energy‑intensive industries to move toward sustainable production systems. The Iranian petrochemical industry, as a key pillar of the national economy and a major resource consumer and polluter, faces multifaceted challenges in adopting such systems. Despite extensive literature on sustainable production, a localized and structured framework for systematically analyzing these challenges and clarifying their causal and hierarchical relationships in Iran’s petrochemical industry remains underdeveloped. Therefore, this study aims to identify, screen, and design a neutrosophic structural model of the challenges of sustainable production systems in this industry and to explain the influence–dependence relationships among their dimensions under uncertainty.



Methods: This research is applied–developmental in purpose and analytical in nature and was conducted through a two‑stage approach. In the first stage, 45 challenges categorized into 12 dimensions were identified through literature review and validated using second‑order confirmatory factor analysis within a formative–reflective measurement model based on data from 225 industry and academic experts. Convergent and discriminant validity, composite reliability, and collinearity diagnostics for formative constructs were assessed to ensure the adequacy of the measurement model. In the second stage, causal relationships and hierarchical structuring of the challenge dimensions were analyzed using the Neutrosophic Interpretive Structural Modeling (N‑ISM) approach. Based on the judgments of 19 petrochemical experts, direct‑relationship matrices were developed, and transitivity relationships were applied to determine the hierarchical structure of the challenge dimensions under ambiguity and uncertainty.



Results and discussion: The results of the factor analysis showed that among the 45 initially identified challenges, 41 were statistically significant in the context of Iran’s petrochemical industry and contributed to the construct of “challenges of sustainable production systems.” Reliability and validity indices confirmed the adequacy of the measurement model, and the path coefficients indicated that the human resources (β = 0/33), economic–financial (β = 0/316), and organizational (β = 0/247) dimensions are the most critical focal points for the transition toward sustainable production systems in this industry. Subsequently, neutrosophic structural modeling revealed the hierarchical structure of the challenge dimensions across three levels. In this approach, the use of neutrosophic logic, through the quantification of degrees of truth, falsity, and indeterminacy, enabled the analysis of causal relationships under ambiguous expert judgments and strengthened the robustness of the modeling process. The findings showed that at the third level (root driving factors), the dimensions of organizational, human resource, social, economic/financial, and technological challenges were positioned, forming the fundamental drivers underlying other challenges and functioning as critical bottlenecks. At the second level (intermediate dimensions), governmental and managerial challenges were identified as linking mechanisms between underlying infrastructures and operational outcomes. At the first level (outcome dimensions), informational, market, complexity, external, and environmental challenges were positioned, largely reflecting the conditions of the underlying levels. This hierarchical structure suggests that focusing only on superficial actions, such as market adjustments or temporary environmental projects, without addressing the underlying human, economic, and technological foundations will not lead to the effective implementation of sustainable production systems in the petrochemical industry.



Conclusions: The findings indicated that the transition toward sustainable production in Iran’s petrochemical industry requires structural reforms at foundational levels, particularly in human capital, financial capacity, and organizational and technological maturity. Accordingly, policy and managerial interventions should focus on these key leverage points. By clarifying the causal and hierarchical relationships among the challenge dimensions, the proposed model offers a localized and reliable framework for prioritizing interventions and designing a strategic roadmap for sustainable production, and can serve as a basis for future developmental and comparative studies in other process‑based industries.