SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH SOLAR ENERGY: OPERATIONALIZING ECOLOGIC, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL VALUES

摘要

A new concept, Sustainable Development, has gained widespread use in discussing economic and environmental issues. However, it has proven difficult to use in decision-making because no operational definition of sustainability has been accepted. This paper examines current efforts to operationalize sustainability by defining its attributes and then selecting quantifiable indicators for each attribute, creating sustainability metrics. These metrics can be used to discover and quantify the aspects of solar energy projects that support sustainability. The use of sustainability metrics and Multi-Attribute Utility Theory to evaluate solar energy projects is discussed and two simplified examples are given.