摘要：Sustainable development defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development in1987 refers to “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the abilityof future generations to meet their own needs.” (UNWCED, 1987). The United Nations proposeda set of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 17 goals and 169 targets in March 2015(Hák et al., 2016). Accordingly, it is apparent that sustainability or sustainable development usuallyemphasizesonthefactorsandcriteriainmultipledimensions.Themostpopularwayformeasuringsustainability is the so-called Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework which can incorporate profit,people and the planet simultaneously, and it aims to encourage the stakeholders/decision-makersto achieve sustainable development with the considerations of not only the individual’s profitsbut also people’s live and the planet (Hacking and Guthrie, 2008). Therefore, the concept ofsustainability usually consists of three pillars: economic prosperity, environmental cleanness, andsocial responsibility (Liu and Huang, 2012). Some scholars also pointed out that sustainability orsustainable development should also incorporate some other dimensions (i.e., technological, policyand political aspects, etc.), because the factors in technological, policy, and political dimensionscan significant influence the factors in the three main pillars of sustainability (Ren et al., 2016).For instance, energy efficiency and exergy efficiency in technological dimension have significantimpact on economic performances and environmental impacts. To some extent, higher energyefficiency and exergy efficiency means more profits and less emissions. It could be concluded thatsustainability or sustainable development is a multi-dimensional concept. In other words, multiplefactors/criteria are usually prerequisite to be incorporated in the decisions related to sustainability,namely, the so-called “multi-criteria decision making (MCDM).” Multi-criteria decision making,also called “multi-criteria decision analysis” refers to the evaluation of multiple conflicting criteriain decision making, and it usually involves multiple decision criteria and multiple alternatives.MCDMhasbecomeapowerfultoolforsustainabilityissues,including(1)sustainabilityassessmentand analysis; (2) sustainability ranking and prioritization; (3) sustainability enhancement andimprovement; and (4) sustainability design and optimization. However, there are still variouschallenges in these four fields.
关键词：sustainability; Multi-criteria Decision Analysis; Multi-criteria decision making; Life Cycle Assessment; Life cycle sustainability assessment
