Value-based decision making in the pre-design stage of sustainable building renovation projects – exploring two methods for weighting criteria

Abstract

Renovating our existing building stock holds a great potential. However, as the complexity of renovation projects is high, multi-criteria decision-making methods can support the decision makers throughout the renovation process. This study explores two value-based decision-making methods: the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and weighting, rating and calculating (WRC), in how they support decision makers in weighting criteria in the pre-design stage of building renovation projects. Participants from a Danish municipality were given the task of applying AHP and WRC to prioritize a set of renovation criteria. Four themes were analyzed: (1) practical applicability and decision transparency, (2) reflection and learning, (3) satisfaction with the final decision and (4) comparison to the original decision process. The results indicate that applying a formal weighting method in the pre-design stage of renovation projects increases the reflection, learning, transparency and satisfaction with the group decision outcome among the participants.

Keywords:

• Multi-criteria decision making word
• decision support
• AHP
• WRC

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants from the municipality of Aalborg, who kindly took the time to participate in the experiment. Special thanks to Louise Thorup Frederiksen for kindly providing detailed information about the municipality’s work with the school renovation projects.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.