Abstract Multicriteria analysis is widely used to perform sustainability evaluation for purposes such as decision making or progress assessment following a chosen sustainable development concept. The stages of multicriteria analysis include indicator selection, data characterization, normalization, weighting, and aggregation. However, due to the various framings of sustainability, non-equivalent approaches could be adopted at each stage, introducing methodological uncertainty. Consequently, depending on the methods chosen, divergent and conflicting conclusions or decisions may result. This paper addresses the issue of methodological uncertainties in sustainability evaluation by analyzing how methodological uncertainties arise during multicriteria analysis, then proposing an analytical framework that employs uncertainty and sensitivity analyses to quantify and manage the effects of methodological uncertainties. The consideration of methodological uncertainties in the structure of multicriteria sustainability evaluation shifts the analysis from deterministic to probabilistic, which is advantageous to arrive at robust and homogenized sustainability conclusions or decisions.

中文翻译：

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方法学不确定性下可持续性评估的多标准分析框架

摘要 多标准分析被广泛用于根据选定的可持续发展概念进行决策或进度评估等目的的可持续性评估。多标准分析的阶段包括指标选择、数据表征、归一化、加权和聚合。然而，由于可持续性的各种框架，每个阶段都可以采用非等效的方法，从而引入方法论的不确定性。因此，根据所选择的方法，可能会产生不同和相互矛盾的结论或决定。本文通过分析多标准分析过程中方法学不确定性是如何产生的，解决了可持续性评估中方法学不确定性的问题，然后提出一个分析框架，该框架采用不确定性和敏感性分析来量化和管理方法学不确定性的影响。对多标准可持续性评估结构中方法学不确定性的考虑将分析从确定性转变为概率性，这有利于得出稳健且同质的可持续性结论或决策。