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Over the past few centuries, the process of decision-making has become more complicated in different respects. Since the initial phase of Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) around fifty years ago, Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) has continued developing over the years as a sub-concept of MCDM. Noticeably, the importance of the decision-making process is increasingly expanding to such an extent that it necessarily blends into the undeniable processes of MADM actual models. Novel methods with different perspectives have been introduced considering the dynamic MADM concepts of time and future in classical frameworks; however, they do not overcome challenges in practice. Recently, Prospective MADM (PMADM) as a specific approach has presented future-oriented models using already known approaches of MCDM, and it has innovative items which show barriers of classic model of MADM. However, PMADM practically needs more conceptual bases to illustrate and plan the future of real decision-making problems. The Multi-Aspect Criterion is a new concept in mapping the future of the PMADM outline. In this regard, two examples of sustainability will be analyzed, and different requirements and aspects associated with PMADM will be discussed in this study. This new approach can support the PMADM outline in more detail and deal with a decision-making structure that can be considered as novel to industry experts.

Swidden or shifting cultivation is a widespread yet controversial land-use in the tropical forest–agriculture frontier. In recent years, the extent of land under swidden and the people who rely on it for subsistence and income have declined. We report swidden land-use changes in two central hill districts of Nepal by indigenous Chepang communities—a stronghold of swidden cultivation in mountainous Nepal. Despite a common trend of swidden decline, as in other parts of South and Southeast Asia, we found that swidden is important in the life and livelihoods of smallholder rural Chepang farmers in the area. Swidden cultivation was found to be more important to farmers with limited off-farm opportunities and in areas where alternative land-uses were scarce. We discuss biophysical, socio-economic, institutional, and other key drivers affecting farmers’ decision to shift away from or continue with swidden in the area. Using linear mixed effect models, we also examined households’ attributes that may expedite swidden decisions in the area. Our study recommends greater access to alternative land-use(s) and other income-generating options for the wellbeing of smallholder indigenous Chepang farmers, as well as the sustainability of this age-old land-use practice.

This paper offers a critical assessment of the value and utility of the evolving City Region Food Systems (CRFS) approach to improve our insights into flows of resources—food, waste, people, and knowledge—from rural to peri-urban to urban and back again, and the policies and process needed to enable sustainability. This paper reflects on (1) CRFS merits compared to other approaches; (2) the operational potential of applying the CRFS approach to existing projects through case analysis; (3) how to make the CRFS approach more robust and ways to further operationalize the approach; and (4) the potential for the CRFS approach to address complex challenges including integrated governance, territorial development, metabolic flows, and climate change. The paper begins with the rationale for CRFS as both a conceptual framework and an integrative operational approach, as it helps to build increasingly coherent transformational food systems. CRFS is differentiated from existing approaches to understand the context and gaps in theory and practice. We then explore the strength of CRFS through the conceptual building blocks of ‘food systems’ and ‘city-regions’ as appropriate, or not, to address pressing complex challenges. As both a multi-stakeholder, sustainability-building approach and process, CRFS provides a collective voice for food actors across scales and could provide coherence across jurisdictions, policies, and scales, including the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Habitat III New Urban Agenda, and the Conference of the Parties (COP) 21. CRFS responds directly to calls in the literature to provide a conceptual and practical framing for policy through wide engagement across sectors that enables the co-construction of a relevant policy frame that can be enacted through sufficiently integrated policies and programs that achieve increasingly sustainable food systems.

This study develops a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for the optimal and stochastic operation scheduling of smart buildings. The aim of this study is to match the electricity demand with the intermittent solar-based renewable resources profile and to minimize the energy cost. The main contribution of the proposed model addresses uncertainties of the thermal load in smart buildings by considering detailed types of loads such as hot water, heating, and ventilation loads. In smart grids, buildings are no longer passive consumers. They are controllable loads, which can be used for demand-side energy management. Smart homes, as a domain of Internet of Things (IoT), enable energy systems of the buildings to operate as an active load in smart grids. The proposed formulation is cast as a stochastic MILP model for a 24-h horizon in order to minimize the total energy cost. In this study, Monte Carlo simulation technique is used to generate 1000 random scenarios for two environmental factors: the outdoor temperature, and solar radiation. Therefore in the proposed model, the thermal load, the output power of the photovoltaic panel, solar collector power generation, and electricity load become stochastic parameters. The proposed model results in an energy cost-saving of 20%, and a decrease of the peak electricity demand from 7.6 KWh to 4.2 KWh.

Societal infrastructures are the lifeblood of societies, and the sustainability of infrastructures is very important. Societal infrastructures can experience conflicting spatial claims with other societal infrastructures, disturbing the sustainable situation. The objective of this paper is to design large infrastructures, with a focus on the Drinking Water Infrastructure (DWI), in a more sustainable way by using the resilience concept. To study this, a case study was done in the Netherlands, where an overlap is present between the DWI and the protection zones, and a new railroad and water safety measures in the river IJssel. The case showed that conflicting infrastructures are inflexible and unable to adapt to change due to several reasons in the governance and in the infrastructure system itself. The case was useful for identifying eight design principles to prevent conflicting claims between large infrastructures.

The theme of global sustainable development has changed from environmental management to climate governance, and relevant policies on climate governance urgently need to be implemented by the public. The public understanding of climate change has become the prerequisite and basis for implementing various climate change policies. In order to explore the affected factors of climate change perception among Chinese residents, this study was conducted across 31 provinces and regions of China through field household surveys and interviews. Combined with the residents’ perception of climate change with the possible affected factors, the related factors affecting Chinese residents’ perception of climate change were explored. The results show that the perceptive level of climate change of Chinese residents is related to the education level and the household size of residents. Improving public awareness of climate change risk in the context of climate change through multiple channels will also help to improve residents’ awareness of climate change. On the premise of improving the level of national education, improving education on climate change in school education and raising awareness of climate change risk among dependents will help to improve the level of Chinese residents’ awareness of climate change, which could be instrumental in promoting public participation in climate change mitigation and adaptation actions.

A plethora of regulatory environmental planning policies constrain on-site construction operations, to theoretically minimise negative environmental impact and create sustainable practice. However, it is widely acknowledged that the construction sector continues to remain a significant cause of environmental degradation, even in contexts where policies and regulations exist. In this manner, a disparity exists between policy intent and policy outcome. The purpose of this study is to explore how policy implementation may influence the disparity between policy intent and policy outcome in the context of regulatory environmental planning policy and on-site construction environmental management operations. Importantly, the study moves beyond State authorities responsible for, inter alia, policy formulation and ratification, as it concentrates upon policy users: ground level implementation actors (government and non-government) and activities. Understanding key issues associated with policy implementation from the literature, a two-stage qualitative research design was adopted to explore policy implementation. In addition to key issues with policy implementation identified in the literature, the findings identified four context-specific conditions that impact upon successful implementation: policy operationalisation, organisational position, professional belief, and specialist knowledge and understanding. The implications demonstrate cultural change across the sector as fundamental for successful policy outcomes, and ultimately, environmental protection.