PLANETS SSbD Training on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) (17.04.2026, online)

On 17 April 2026, the PLANETS consortium organised a virtual internal training session on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). The session began with an introduction to the concept, followed by an overview of MCDA methodologies, including available tools and approaches for its implementation. It also provided insights into how decision-making processes are carried out in industry, and explored the importance of integrating stakeholders’ perspectives into decision-making.

Highlights of the workshop

Martin Himly (PLUS), leader of the training work package within PLANETS, began the training session by introducing the topic, outlining its objectives and structure, and providing background information.

Carla Caldeira (SYENSQO) explained that decision making is a daily task; but it is also needed in the Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) context. She introduced the term Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM), as the collection of methods that help people make decisions according to their preferences in situations where there is more than one conflicting criterion, and gave an overview of different MCDM methods based on the nature of the decision space and the interaction between criteria. She continued describing the standards steps in a MCDM process. After that she dived into MCDA = Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (one of the MCDM methods), and its different tools and possibilities, as well when and how to apply each one. She continued with MCDA applied to SSbD, exploring several publications that deal with decision-making in safety and sustainability assessment.

Joséphine Munsch (Elkem) talked about MCDA tools in the chemical industry, giving tangible insight into how decision-making processes takes place in industries and which tools some may use.

Neeraj Shandilya (TNO) concluded the session, talking about why to include stakeholder views in the decision-making process, how to get them involved, and the benefits & challenges associated with their involvement. He also provided an overview of how these aspects will be addressed within the PLANETS project.

Martin Himly wrapped up the session highlighting the key elements of the training.

Throughout the training, interactive questions were asked via Mentimeter to engage participants and gather their opinions on various aspects of the topic.

The following PLANETS partners were involved in the preparation of this training: Carla Caldeira (SQO), Josephine Munsch (ELKEM), Neeraj Shandilya (TNO), Beatriz Alfaro Serrano (BNN), Sabine Hofer, Norbert Hofstätter, and Martin Himly (PLUS).

Training Materials – In preparation

Building on the insights from this internal training, PLANETS has developed external training materials as an introduction to MCDA. These materials include:

• Presentation slides
• Recording of the session

All training materials are available in the PLANETS community on Zenodo under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, which allows for redistribution and reuse with proper credit to the creators. You can access them here (LINK TO BE ADDED), with DOI: xxx (tba).

Additionally, all recorded sessions can be viewed on the PLANETS YouTube channel.