Title: Participatory multi-criteria decision analysis for sustainable energy planning

Authors: Apostolos Arsenopoulos; Vangelis Marinakis; Haris Doukas

Addresses: Decision Support Systems Laboratory, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece ' Decision Support Systems Laboratory, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece ' Decision Support Systems Laboratory, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Abstract: Public participation is constantly gaining attention in the context of decision-making process at local level, given that citizens are the main beneficiaries of the implemented policy measures. In this respect, stakeholder engagement has found itself at the core of the dialogue process for integrating multiple perspectives in sustainable energy planning, with the minimum social disruption. This paper aims to present a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework for enhancing stakeholder engagement in the policy-making process, enabling decision-makers together with experts, citizens and other beneficiaries to jointly prioritise sustainable energy and climate actions to be implemented. The proposed framework allows marginalised population groups to express their views on issues of the everyday life, which are eventually incorporated in an MCDA analysis along with the experts' assessments. The proposed methodology is applied in a Greek municipality to showcase its functionalities and highlight future challenges that will make it even more integrated.

Keywords: stakeholder engagement; public participation; sustainable energy planning; decision-making; multi-criteria analysis; TOPSIS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCDM.2021.119451

International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making, 2021 Vol.8 No.3, pp.276 - 290

Received: 09 Jun 2021
Accepted: 02 Aug 2021
Published online: 05 Dec 2021 *