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Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) for sustainability assessment–How reliable are the results?
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, Bioeconomy and Health, Food Research and Innovation.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0513-5495
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, Bioeconomy and Health, Food Research and Innovation.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0167-5603
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, Bioeconomy and Health, Food Research and Innovation.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8266-0528
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, Bioeconomy and Health, Food Research and Innovation.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8038-1365
2026 (English)In: Sustainable Futures, E-ISSN 2666-1888, Vol. 11Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Navigating through widely different strategies for pursuing sustainability in complex systems demands comprehensive approaches to thoroughly assess their performance, accounting for multiple, often conflicting, domains of sustainability. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) proves well-suited for the task. Despite its growing use, the reliability of MCDA-based sustainability assessment outcomes, particularly under uncertainty and in dynamic contexts, remains underexplored. This study evaluates the robustness and sensitivity of such results through five case studies in the Swedish food production and consumption system, analysed across four considered future supply chain solutions. This study conducts a comprehensive sensitivity and uncertainty analysis to assess the impact of variations in indicator weights and performance scores. Findings show that while the sustainability assessment results are generally, but not in all cases, robust, certain sustainability indicators disproportionately influence final rankings across case studies. Small perturbations in these critical indicators can shift the top-performing solution, highlighting the need for rigorous weighting strategies and context-specific indicator selection. Such critical indicators were found to be not the ones recognised with the highest weights. The study demonstrates the value of incorporating sensitivity and uncertainty analysis into MCDA-based sustainability assessment studies to enhance transparency, decision confidence, and practical applicability, particularly in complex, interdisciplinary domains such as food systems sustainability

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier Ltd , 2026. Vol. 11
Keywords [en]
DEMATEL; Food systems; Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis; Sustainability assessment; TOPSIS
National Category
Environmental Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-80327DOI: 10.1016/j.sftr.2026.101657Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105027768841OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-80327DiVA, id: diva2:2034639
Note

This study was performed as part of the research programme MISTRA Food Futures (www.mistrafoodfutures.org) and was funded by MISTRA \u2013 The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. We also would like to acknowledge Andres H Karlsson (SLU), Marie Olsson (SLU), Katarina Arvidsson Segerkvist (SLU), Elin Stenberg (SLU), Elin R\u00F6\u00F6s (SLU), Lars Hamberg (RISE), Sandra Pousette (RISE), and Emelie Dybeck (RISE) for contributing to the development of the case studies.

Available from: 2026-02-02 Created: 2026-02-02 Last updated: 2026-02-02Bibliographically approved

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Naseri Rad, MehranSonesson, UlfHöglund, EvelinaÖstergren, Karin

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