Applications of the Multi-Criteria Decision Aid Methods in the ex-ante Assessment and Management of Strong and Weak Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability assessment is defined as a tool for measuring sustainability and the achievement of its environmental, economic, and social objectives. This may be an ex-post or ex-ante evaluation, and may relate both to the assessment of sustainable development and to the assessment of the impact of specific actions on sustainable development. It should be noted that ex-ante sustainability assessment is a much more cognitively valuable issue than ex-post evaluation, as it allows responding in advance to threats to sustainable development. The ex-ante evaluation allows the formulation of forecasts for sustainable development, which plays an important informational role. Such projections support decision-making processes and stimulate beneficial actions and prevent the occurrence of adverse events.

It should be noted that the dimensions of sustainability are often in conflict with each other. Therefore, the question arises: is it possible to achieve sustainability in such situations, when individual dimensions are in conflict? The practical answer to this problem is the introduction of the concepts of strong and weak sustainability. Weak sustainability means that the economic, social, and natural capitals are interchangeable and can replace one another. On the other hand, strong sustainability means that they are complementary but not interchangeable.

Multi-criteria decision aid methods are designed to solve complex decision-making problems with many conflicting criteria and objectives and sources of uncertainty. Nonetheless, such features tend to characterise the decision-making problems associated with sustainable development and sustainability assessment. Moreover, the characteristics of multi-criteria decision aid methods are consistent with the concepts of strong and weak sustainability, due to the different levels of criteria compensation used in different methods. The concept of strong sustainability is reflected by a low degree of compensation, and weak sustainability corresponds to a high degree of criteria compensation. For these reasons, multi-criteria decision aid methods are increasingly used in sustainability assessment.

This Special Issue invites contributions dealing with the following:

- The preparation and development of MCDA methods capable of capturing sustainability;

- Research into the application of MCDA methods in strong and weak sustainability;

- Survey and theoretical articles, as well as application papers, are welcome.

References:

1. Cinelli, M. et al. Analysis of the potentials of multi criteria decision analysis methods to conduct sustainability assessment. Ecological Indicators 2014, 46, 138–148.
2. Wątróbski, J. et al. Generalised framework for multi-criteria method selection. Omega 2018.
3. Ziemba, P. et al. Using the PROSA Method in Offshore Wind Farm Location Problems. Energies 2017, 10, 1755.

Dr. Paweł Ziemba
Guest Editor

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