Practical sustainability criteria for decision-making

SUMMARY

The new paradigm of sustainability necessitates revisions to traditional decision-making processes. This paper, which is the first in a series of four, outlines the changes required for decision-making to reflect sustainability concerns. Three sustainability criteria, that are the focus of the three subsequent papers, are introduced and the rationale for each is explained. A framework for incorporating the three sustainability criteria into the decision-making process is briefly outlined. The paper ends with the introduction to a case study, the North Central Project (NCP) for electricity supply alternatives. The NCP is used in the three following papers to demonstrate the individual components of the new approach to sustainable decision-making.

Key words:

• sustainability
• decision-making
• criteria
• fairness
• reversibility
• risk