Multiple Criteria Assessment of Insulating Materials with a Group Decision Framework Incorporating Outranking Preference Model and Characteristic Class Profiles

Abstract

We present a group decision making framework for evaluating sustainability of the insulating materials. We tested thirteen materials on a model that was applied to retrofit a traditional rural building through roof's insulation. To evaluate the materials from the socio-economic and environmental viewpoints, we combined life cycle costing and assessment with an adaptive comfort evaluation. In this way, the performances of each coating material were measured in terms of an incurred reduction of costs and consumption of resources, maintenance of the cultural and historic significance of buildings, and a guaranteed indoor thermal comfort. The comprehensive assessment of the materials involved their assignment to one of the three preferenceordered sustainability classes. For this purpose, we used a multiple criteria decision analysis approach that accounted for preferences of a few tens of rural buildings' owners. The proposed methodological framework incorporated an outranking-based preference model to compare the insulating materials with the characteristic class profiles while using the weights derived from the revised Simos procedure. The initial sorting recommendation for each material was validated against the outcomes of robustness analysis that combined the preferences of individual stakeholders either at the output or at the input level. The analysis revealed that the most favorable materials in terms of their overall sustainability were glass wool, hemp fibres, kenaf fibres, polystyrene foam, polyurethane, and rock wool. Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-017-9549-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. B Miłosz Kadziński

Multicriteria decision making for sustainable development: A systematic review

“…This number is 30 years or more when studying the impacts of climate change on water quality (Ha et al, ). In the case of evaluating the sustainability of the system or a material, Kadziński et al () used a time horizon of 25 years for insulating materials and Vo et al () applied a hydroelectric storage asset life of 50‐100 years.…”

“…This number is 30 years or more when FIGURE 2 Distribution of papers by uncertainty modelling approach studying the impacts of climate change on water quality (Ha et al, 2017). In the case of evaluating the sustainability of the system or a material, Kadziński et al (2018)…”

How to support the application of multiple criteria decision analysis? Let us start with a comprehensive taxonomy

“…Another strategy for exploiting the model is when the preferences of a group (c.5.3) rather than an individual are modeled to reach a group decision recommendation. Such methods can be distinguished at different levels [ 90 ]. Specifically, they can be divided with respect to the level on which individual viewpoints are aggregated.…”