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Multicriteria Analysis for Sustainable Industrial
Technologies
For a given sector, comparing new technologies to the referenced
ones. The used criteria are defined according to the sector. The
goal of the comparison is to identify the significant improvements
in the whole sustainability solutions set.
What for?
Within the context of sustainable development, technological investment
options cannot only be based on financial and technical criteria.
It is more and more necessary to integrate the environmental and
social ones.
In order to be competitive, industrials are often induced to invest
in new technologies, new production site implementations, line of
products modernisation etc…
During this investment stage, one crucial issue is coming up :
"Among all the technologies available on the market, which
one is the most relevant for my activity?"
The notion of relevance implies that the chosen technology is :
- outstanding in the economic and technical field
- consistent with industrial strategies (environmental, social
etc…)
- reliable, from the regulation, social, technical, environmental
point of view
These different criteria interact with each other. Thus, the determination
of key elements can only be established from a multicriteria analysis,
which apprehends the problematic with an overview of technology
in its context.
Issue
For an equivalent or superior given service, a new technology will
be considered as more sustainable if it is globally more profitable,
less resources consuming, less risks generator and if its implementation
takes into account the social background within which it will be
applied.
In order to identify the most sustainable technologies, PricewaterhouseCoopers,
the CEA, EDF, and the ADEME, entered into partnership in order to
develop the MASIT methodology.
Method
In order to define key comparison factors, the MASIT methodology
analyses the technologies according to seven complementary
points of view.
- Regulation
- Functional
- Technology & Industrialisation
- Environment
- Technological and Industrial Risks
- Economy
- Social
In order to assure that the different points of view and their
interaction has been taken into account, the MASIT methodology defines
a structured approach which acts in two stages:
- The framingstage, which applies to a given sector of activity
(for instance, desalination, surface treatment, etc.)
- The comparison, stage which consists in comparing several
technologies in the concerned sector (for instance, heat desalination
, reverse-osmosis in case of water desalination ; aqueous chromium
deposit, chromium Physical Vacuum Deposit (PVD), carbon chemical
vacuum Deposit (CVD) in case of surface treatment)
At the framing stage, the project manager (the person in charge
of this stage), prepares, for each points of view, the board of
data and relevant criterion, for instance: investment, lobbies,
current and prospective regulation, etc.
The frame definition team brings in several experts (jurist, engineer,
economist etc…)
The Sustainable Development Department proposes the different necessary
skills available within its staff.
The analysis stage involvesapplying the criterion defined at the
framing stage. For each point of view, the results are aggregated.
Only the relevant information according to the analysis context
and goal are taken into account.
The adjustment of the methodology to the technologies family to
analyse is made thanks to the capitalisation of the analysis that
have been carried out.
MASIT Added Value
During the MASIT methodology perfecting a part of the efforts has
been focussed on the tools for presentations of results. The goal
is to highlight the relevant results. The MASIT methodology advises
to present the results in a graphical and chart format. This allows
the investors to visualise rapidly the and globally the positioning
of the different analysed technologies.
The figures bellow illustrate an example :
Examples of positioning of three technologies A1, A2 et B1 from the social, economical and environmental point of view.
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