A Combined Value Focused Thinking-Soft Systems Methodology Approach to Structure Decision Support for Energy Performance Assessment of School Buildings
Hermano Bernardo
1
INESC Coimbra, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Polo II, University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal
2
ADAI, LAETA, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Polo II, University of Coimbra, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2018, 10(7), 2295; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10072295
Received: 23 May 2018 / Revised: 16 June 2018 / Accepted: 29 June 2018 / Published: 3 July 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Buildings and Indoor Air Quality)
Several technological, social and organizational factors influence energy management in school buildings, resulting in a complex situation away from the usual engineering approach. The selection of evaluation criteria to assess the energy performance of school buildings remains one of the most challenging aspects since these should accommodate the perspectives of the potential key stakeholders. This paper presents a comprehensive problem structuring approach combining Soft Systems Methodology and Value Focused Thinking to elicit and organize the multiple aspects that influence energy efficiency of school buildings. The main aim of this work is structuring the fundamental objectives to develop a criteria tree to be considered in a multi-criteria classification model to be used by management entities for rating overall energy performance of school buildings. This methodological framework helped grasping the main issues at stake for a thorough energy performance assessment of school buildings and the need to define adequate policies for improvement.
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Keywords:
energy performance; school buildings; problem structuring methods; soft systems methodology; value focused thinking; multi-criteria decision analysis
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MDPI and ACS Style
Bernardo, H.; Gaspar, A.; Henggeler Antunes, C. A Combined Value Focused Thinking-Soft Systems Methodology Approach to Structure Decision Support for Energy Performance Assessment of School Buildings. Sustainability 2018, 10, 2295.
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