Group decision and distributed technical support

A group of 45 decision-makers (local authorities and representatives from the communities) worked together for 16 months with a facilitator group, to identify relevant criteria to analyze the consequences of a plant location. Two multi-criteria models, one for an incinerator and the other for a waste disposal plant, were elaborated and an ELECTRE method was used to compare sites and rank them, with the aim of selecting the best sites for which an environmental impact assessment procedure will be activated. A virtual team, from different organizations, supported this work from a technical point of view. This kind of ‘distributed support’ to a multi-criteria decision required actions of coordination and knowledge filtering and interpreting. The paper proposes an analysis of this participatory decision process and synthesizes the difficulties and results of the multi-criteria decision aid intervention.