Socio-Economic Planning Sciences(SEPS) will publish a special issue focusing on the recent developments inDecision-Making for Environmental Sustainability. The goal is to compile state-of-the art research, spanning modeling, theory, empirical studies, application and case studies in this research area. We seek manuscripts that are rigorously executed, clearly and succinctly written, addressing contemporary and innovative challenges. In light of the scope of SEPS, all papers must clearly demonstrate the relevance of their contributions with respect to the public sector. Of particular interest are studies carried out in economically emerging regions of the world.
The environment plays a key role in people's well-being and human development. With this awareness, environmental goals have been explicitly set by the main international organizations, including UN and OECD. The inclusion of environmental objectives among the Sustainable Development Goals and in the Better Life Initiative indicators are well-known examples. Meanwhile, many policy actions have been explicitly devoted to address environmental sustainability, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.
While decision-making needs measures and evaluation, environmental sustainability cannot be easily measured. Given the inherent multidimensionality of environmental outcomes, the choices of relevant indicators and synthesizing procedures represent compelling steps for environmental economic analysis, decision-making and policy-making at regional, national and international levels. It has been shown that Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) can be effectively utilized in order to provide support to key stakeholders when facing problems of great societal relevance. As such, this special issue is dedicated to papers dealing with decision-making in environmental sustainability by means of MCDM approaches.