Review of methods for sustainability appraisals in ship acquisition

Abstract

Ship acquisition requires simultaneous consideration of environmental, economic, technological and social performance of candidate design solutions. During the last few decades, multi-criteria decision-making tools have gained popularity as an approach to assisting decision makers when appraising ship design. However, applications are limited to a few methods mostly within the value function class. In this review, we explore the applicability of 12 multi-criteria decision-making methods for typical decision contexts in ship acquisition. Technical and practical method properties are defined before their operational value for evaluations in ship acquisition is assessed. Our results show that a wide range of methods currently not applied offer promising properties in these contexts.