Navigating trade-offs in design for sustainability and circularity: a tool for decision making leveraging narratives and multiple criteria decision analysis

In the early stages of R&D projects, such as product or technology development, decision making often entails trade-offs. In the context of design for sustainability, trade-offs also include environmental, social, and circularity aspects, which must be balanced on top of more traditional requirements (such as cost, risk, and quality). Multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tools can support these decisions, but it is challenging to operationalise MCDA in practice due to the uncertainty of innovation, the subjectivity of decision makers, and the complexity of sustainability and group decision-making. This study proposes a decision support tool tailored to sustainability and circularity trade-offs, which applies an ELECTRE III model and leverages the use of narratives for navigating deep uncertainties and subjectivity in group decision making. The tool, called Multiple Narrative Decision Analysis, provides a structured approach on how to set criteria, elicit weights, handle non-negotiable criteria, facilitate group decision making, and perform sensitivity analysis. It was extensively tested in manufacturing companies, following a participatory mixed-methods approach with quasi-experiments, observations, workshops, and interviews. By demonstrating the potential of combining MCDA methods and narratives, this study provides a novel contribution to theory (by advancing our understanding of the role of narratives in decision-making) and to practice (by strengthening trade-off decision making in manufacturing companies towards circular and sustainable manufacturing).