Title: Towards a sustainable city: improving the sustainability of Cranberry Township

Authors: Fikret Korhan Turan

Addresses: ESMT European School of Management and Technology, Schlossplatz 1, 10178, Berlin, Germany

Abstract: This research paper provides a project evaluation and impact assessment process for organisational sustainability that enables decision-makers to create a balance among their organisation|s economic, environmental, and social objectives (the triple bottom line). The process is presented as a case study where Cranberry Township, a suburb of the City of Pittsburgh, is selected as the application organisation by collaborating with Sustainable Pittsburgh, a non-for-profit organisation in Pittsburgh region. In the context of knowledge-based development, utilising the analytic network process (ANP) as a decision support tool, the case study involves the evaluation and prioritisation of a set of alternative investment projects by the stakeholders in the township with respect to a predetermined sustainability criteria set. In addition to the ANP study results, the paper provides elaborate discussions and explanations on the development of the ANP model, details of stakeholder meetings, limitations of the proposed process and potential future research directions.

Keywords: multicriteria decision making; MCDM; analytical hierarchy process; AHP; analytical network process; ANP; triple bottom line; TBL; organisational sustainability; corporate sustainability; business sustainability; sustainable cities; knowledge cities; knowledge-based development; project portfolio management; project evaluation; impact assessment; sustainable development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCDM.2011.041191

International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making, 2011 Vol.1 No.3, pp.298 - 320

Published online: 29 Nov 2014 *

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