This paper attempts to provide an explanation of why reductionistic approaches are not adequate to tackle the urban sustainability issue in a consistent way. Concepts such as urban environmental carrying capacity and ecological footprint are discussed. Multicriteria evaluation is proposed as a...

In this article, a real-world case- study is presented with two general objectives: to give a clear and simple illustrative example of application of social multi-criteria evaluation (SMCE) in the field of rural renewable energy policies, and to help in understanding to what extent and under...

In the last decades; a growing stock of literature has been devoted to the criticism of GDP as an indicator of societal wealth. A relevant question is: what are the perspectives to build, on the existing knowledge and consensus, alternative measures of prosperity? A starting point may be to...

When one wishes to implement public policies, there is a previous need of comparing different actions and valuating and evaluating them to assess their social attractiveness. Recently the concept of well-being has been proposed as a multidimensional proxy for measuring societal prosperity and...

This report contains a description of environmental policy tools, gives an overview of post-Normal science (bridge between complex systems and environmental policy), ecological economics, the incommensurability principle, the mulitcriteria evaluation and the NAIDE method (fuzzy information).

Most insights of environmental economics are in line with the standard neo-classical economic model of rational behaviour, formulated in terms of maximisation of utility in general, or profits in particular. The standard theory of environmental policy is a case in point. However, the...

Since Kyoto Protocol, the international community is compromising itself to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. However, the implementation of energy policies, such as the construction of renewable energy installations, in many cases doesn't suit with local perceived necessities and causes...

Since Kyoto Protocol, the international community is compromising itself to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. However, the implementation of energy policies, such as the construction of renewable energy installations, in many cases doesn’t suit with local perceived necessities and causes...