Review of combined approaches and multi-criteria analysis for corporate environmental evaluation

Abstract This paper reviews the advantages of combining complementary environmental evaluation tools – ecological footprint, life cycle assessment and environmental risk assessment – that were identified as encompassing the most significant features that should be considered in corporate-related appraisals. Together, these tools evaluate key aspects of environmental sustainability, such as depletion of resources, environmental impacts and human health preservation, and their combined application was found to produce more comprehensive analyses and ensure that relevant issues were not being disregarded. The joint application of complementary tools implies a set of indicators for which a compromise solution must be found. In this respect, the applicability of multi-criteria analysis in decision support systems was also reviewed, restricting the areas of application to the following 4 categories: 1) industry-related applications, 2) energy decision making, 3) waste management and treatment and 4) wastewater treatment. Outranking methods were identified as those more widely employed in environmental problems when users were asked to select from a number of discrete alternatives. The incorporation of fuzzy reasoning in decision making has increased significantly in most recent applications, revealing the need to incorporate such features in a problem characterized by imprecision and subjectivity. Although not always conducted, sensitivity analyses were also essential to enhancing the robustness and reliability of such studies. It was concluded that multi-criteria analysis would benefit from the previous application of standardized methodologies as those proposed in this review to derive criteria. Hence, the most relevant environmental burdens and their severity would be identified and characterized in a previous step, helping to reduce the complexity of the decision-making problem and the possibility of duplicating effects. The scientific basis would be enhanced, making the selection of criteria and establishment of weights less arbitrary.