Application of multi-criteria decision-making approach for sustainability assessmentof chosen photovoltaic modules

A concern about the current state of relations between industry and the environment is often neglected. However, it is important to underline that industry and sustainability are not mutually exclusive. There are many industrial processes to blame when analyzing the negative impact on current socio-ecological environment. The emerging question is whether companies nowadays are ready to face challenges in the name of sustainability, the future of the planet and generations to come. In addition, an assessment of industrial processes may be very time-consuming and costly in financial terms. This fact allows developing sustainability assessment approach and its measures for keeping track on to evaluate scale of environmental, social and economic changes. The goal of the paper is to develop a multicriteria decision-making approach for sustainability assessment of renewable energy technology. A sustainability assessment approach combines life cycle-based methods integrated with multi-criteria decision-making method based on analytical hierarchy process. The resulting assessment method allows finding a compromise between industry and the environment and identify potential intervention points for further research. As a result of decision-making process, string ribbon technology was considered as the most sustainable. The applicability of the proposed method is assessed based on photovoltaic panels.