Beyond climate change. Multi-attribute decision making for a sustainability assessment of energy system transformation pathways

Hottenroth, Heidi; Sutardhio, Claudia; Weidlich, Anke; Tietze, Ingela; Simon, Sonja; Hauser, Wolfgang; Naegler, Tobias; Becker, Lisa; Buchgeister, Jens; Junne, Tobias; Lehr, Ulrike; Scheel, Oliver; Schmidt-Scheele, Ricarda; Ulrich, P. ). Fonction indéterminée; Viere, Tobias

doi:10.1016/j.rser.2021.111996

Cited by 34 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…When coordinating the results of the DCE and the focus groups with energy system models and macroeconomic models as part of an integrative assessment of energy scenarios (the overall objective of the research project), it became clear that current energy system models cannot quantify aspects of distributive justice of the calculated scenarios. The only indicator related to distributive justice that the applied models could calculate was the economic regional disparity [20]. However, participants in our focus groups were not only discussing regional inequalities; for them, intergenerational distributive justice, burden sharing between state, firms, and citizens, as well as between different income and lifestyle groups was far more important.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Subsequently, the sustainability indicators, i.e. the attributes and the levels presented for each scenario were selected (see Figure 1) based on i) desk research regarding which sustainability criteria are prominently discussed for energy technologies also in the public sphere, and ii) a list of 22 sustainability indicators to be included in the multiple criteria assessment of the project [20]. Data for all indicators included effects regarding the technologies' full life-cycle (installation, operation, disposal) 6 .…”

Section: Photovoltaics + Battery Storage)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The DCE allowed us to analyze the relative importance of the different sustainability indicators for citizens' decisions. Such preference structures with regards to the different weights of sustainability indicators are core inputs for multi-criteria assessments, and were thus, used by the interdisciplinary research team (see [20] for an elaboration of the results and methodology). Furthermore, we adopted an explorative perspective by conducting six focus groups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bridging the Gap: An Empirical Approach to Studying the Social Sustainability of Future Energy Systems

Schmidt-Scheele

Hauser

Scheel

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Background: Given the multitude of scenarios on the future of our energy systems, multi-criteria assessments are increasingly called for to analyze and anticipate long-term effects of possible pathways with regards to their environmental, economic and social sustainability. While economic and ecologic indicators are covered through energy systems modelling and life cycle sustainability assessments, approaches to the social sustainability of future energy systems remain methodologically under-developed. Previous studies have either focused only on the social acceptance of single energy technologies or used expert-based environmental and economic indicators with social implications. Approach and results: We argue that in order to gather empirical insights on the social sustainability of future energy systems and to integrate it in multi-criteria assessments, citizens’ preferences and values need to be more systematically analyzed while informing their decisions more transparently with full life cycle data. Given the lack of theoretical underpinnings of sustainability and of empirical insights into citizens’ perceptions of sustainability with respect to future energy systems, we further argue that an explorative research design is needed. Therefore, next to six focus groups, we conducted a discrete choice experiment. The method is currently becoming more popular to analyze individuals’ preference structures for energy technologies or investments. As we show in our paper, it can be fruitfully applied to study the values and trade-offs of citizens with regards to sustainability issues. Our combined empirical methods provide two main insights with strong implications for the future development and assessment of energy pathways: While environmental and climate-related effects significantly influenced citizens’ preferences for or against certain energy pathways, total systems and production costs were of far less importance to citizens than the public discourse suggests. Conclusions: Our findings are contrary to the focus of many scenario studies that seek to optimize pathways according to total systems costs. The role of fairness and distributional justice in transition processes featured as a dominant theme in all focus groups. This adds central dimensions for future multi-criteria assessments that, so far, have been neglected by current energy systems models.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Photovoltaics + Battery Storage)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bridging the Gap: An Empirical Approach to Studying the Social Sustainability of Future Energy Systems

Schmidt-Scheele

Hauser

Scheel

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…e same technique is also used to evaluate the machinability of tungsten carbide composite with wire EDM [25]. e multicriteria decision-making approach in quality assessment is discussed in [26][27][28][29][30]. Different fuzzy graph-theoretic models are also used in several decisionmaking problems [31][32][33][34][35][36][37].…”

Section: Total Quality Management (Tqm)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiattribute Decision-Making of TQM Performance of Hospitals Using TQM Digraphs

Islam

Salam

2022

Mathematical Problems in Engineering

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Total quality management (TQM) is a dynamic philosophy that incorporates gradual and uninterrupted improvements. The total quality is accomplished if all the desired goals including quality of product, reputation in market, services, low cost of product, employee and customer satisfaction, optimum utilization of resources, work environment, and so on are attained. As far as the Pakistani perspective is concerned, TQM as a strategic tool is not appropriately used to optimize its performance. Public healthcare in Pakistan is one of the most ignored sectors with regard to its service quality implementation and delivery. The public sector hospitals are one of the major primary healthcare providers, but the facilities they provide do not meet the desired requirement. This study addresses six TQM attributes to analyze the TQM performance of various public sector teaching hospitals in the province Punjab of Pakistan. The data was obtained from medical experts. The TQM performance to study the behavior of TQM implementation in hospitals is evaluated using TQM digraphs. The hospitals are ranked according to the TQM performance index, which is obtained from TQM digraphs. The technique to find the most effective attribute for a hospital is also proposed. The TQM digraph approach not only focuses on the significance of attributes independently but also incorporates the relative importance of one attribute over another. Also, this approach is very flexible that can incorporate new attributes and market variation so that continuous improvement may be possible. Moreover, the results obtained in this approach are not limited to beneficial for benchmarking of teaching hospitals in Punjab on the TQM basis, but these can also help indicate the particular attribute that is more needed to be improved for a particular hospital to increase its TQM performance.

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“…The output of this analysis are realizations of a set of economic indicators for the ten scenarios to assess macroeconomic effects on the national and regional scale. These results were used in further sustainability assessments of energy transitions [20]. According to a comprehensive review of the methods, measures and issues of the sustainability assessment of energy production compiled by Turkson et al [21], economic indicators feature less often in these assessments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of macroeconomic developments in ten scenarios of energy system transformation in Germany: National and regional results

et al. 2022

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Background Different strategies have been proposed for transforming the energy system in Germany. To evaluate their sustainability, it is necessary to analyze their macroeconomic and distributional effects. An approach to do this analysis in an integrated consistent framework is presented here. Methods Comparing ten energy transition scenarios with emission reduction targets by 2050 of 80% or 95%, respectively, allows evaluating a broad range of energy system transformation strategies with respect to the future technology and energy carrier mix. For this purpose, an energy system model and a macroeconometric model are combined, thus re-modeling the unified scenarios. An important extension of the model was concerned with the integration of synthetic fuels into the energy-economy model. One focus besides the overall macroeconomic assessment is the regional analysis. For this purpose, own assumptions on the regional distribution of the expansion of renewable energies were developed. Results The effects on gross domestic product (GDP) and employment are similar on average from 2030 to 2050 across the scenarios, with most of the more ambitious scenarios showing slightly higher values for the socioeconomic variables. Employment in the construction sector shows the largest effects in most scenarios, while in the energy sector employment is lower in scenarios with high energy imports. At the regional level, the differences between scenarios are larger than at the national level. There is no clear or stable regional pattern of relative loss and profit from the very ambitious transformation, as not only renewable energy expansion varies, and hydrogen strategies enter the scene approaching 2050. Conclusions From the relatively small differences between the scenarios, it can be concluded that, from a macroeconomic perspective, it is not decisive for the overall economy which (supply side) strategy is chosen for the transformation of the energy system. More effort needs to be put into improving assumptions and modeling approaches related to strategies for achieving the final 20% CO2 reduction, for example the increasing use of hydrogen.

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Beyond climate change. Multi-attribute decision making for a sustainability assessment of energy system transformation pathways

Cited by 34 publications

References 71 publications

Bridging the Gap: An Empirical Approach to Studying the Social Sustainability of Future Energy Systems

Bridging the Gap: An Empirical Approach to Studying the Social Sustainability of Future Energy Systems

Multiattribute Decision-Making of TQM Performance of Hospitals Using TQM Digraphs

Comparison of macroeconomic developments in ten scenarios of energy system transformation in Germany: National and regional results

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