Abstract
In recent years, decision makers, policy analysts, and other actors, have become increasingly aware of sustainability, and begun to combine economic, social and environmental criteria in their efforts to maintain competitiveness, long-term growth and development. In multiple stakeholder settings, the presence of diverse objectives and conflicting criteria often leads to a complex multi-criteria decision problem. The multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) offers an integrated framework to model and study sustainability criteria and related inter-criteria relationships. In this paper, we review some of the most significant literature on environmental sustainability, and categorise it to show how and why MCDA models are widely used and becoming increasingly popular. Our systematic analysis suggests that, there has been significant growth in environmental applications of MCDA in diverse areas, ranging from energy management and policy to land use, recycling management and sustainable tourism. Among the various MCDA methods and techniques, analytical hierarchy process, TOPSIS, and goal programming are the most frequently used approaches. Many authors use a combination of different MCDA techniques to balance various factors important to achieve sustainability related goals. We expect sustainability related criteria to be an essential consideration in most future multi-criteria models.
| Original language | British English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 405-432 |
| Number of pages | 28 |
| Journal | Annals of Operations Research |
| Volume | 293 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Oct 2020 |
Keywords
- AHP
- Environmental sustainability
- Goal programming
- Multi-criteria decision analysis
- Review
- TOPSIS
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In: Annals of Operations Research, Vol. 293, No. 2, 01.10.2020, p. 405-432.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Environmental sustainability and multifaceted development
T2 - multi-criteria decision models with applications
AU - Colapinto, Cinzia
AU - Jayaraman, Raja
AU - Ben Abdelaziz, Fouad
AU - La Torre, Davide
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Publisher Copyright: © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - In recent years, decision makers, policy analysts, and other actors, have become increasingly aware of sustainability, and begun to combine economic, social and environmental criteria in their efforts to maintain competitiveness, long-term growth and development. In multiple stakeholder settings, the presence of diverse objectives and conflicting criteria often leads to a complex multi-criteria decision problem. The multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) offers an integrated framework to model and study sustainability criteria and related inter-criteria relationships. In this paper, we review some of the most significant literature on environmental sustainability, and categorise it to show how and why MCDA models are widely used and becoming increasingly popular. Our systematic analysis suggests that, there has been significant growth in environmental applications of MCDA in diverse areas, ranging from energy management and policy to land use, recycling management and sustainable tourism. Among the various MCDA methods and techniques, analytical hierarchy process, TOPSIS, and goal programming are the most frequently used approaches. Many authors use a combination of different MCDA techniques to balance various factors important to achieve sustainability related goals. We expect sustainability related criteria to be an essential consideration in most future multi-criteria models.
AB - In recent years, decision makers, policy analysts, and other actors, have become increasingly aware of sustainability, and begun to combine economic, social and environmental criteria in their efforts to maintain competitiveness, long-term growth and development. In multiple stakeholder settings, the presence of diverse objectives and conflicting criteria often leads to a complex multi-criteria decision problem. The multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) offers an integrated framework to model and study sustainability criteria and related inter-criteria relationships. In this paper, we review some of the most significant literature on environmental sustainability, and categorise it to show how and why MCDA models are widely used and becoming increasingly popular. Our systematic analysis suggests that, there has been significant growth in environmental applications of MCDA in diverse areas, ranging from energy management and policy to land use, recycling management and sustainable tourism. Among the various MCDA methods and techniques, analytical hierarchy process, TOPSIS, and goal programming are the most frequently used approaches. Many authors use a combination of different MCDA techniques to balance various factors important to achieve sustainability related goals. We expect sustainability related criteria to be an essential consideration in most future multi-criteria models.
KW - AHP
KW - Environmental sustainability
KW - Goal programming
KW - Multi-criteria decision analysis
KW - Review
KW - TOPSIS
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074527393&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10479-019-03403-y
DO - 10.1007/s10479-019-03403-y
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85074527393
SN - 0254-5330
VL - 293
SP - 405
EP - 432
JO - Annals of Operations Research
JF - Annals of Operations Research
IS - 2
ER -