Preface to the Special Issue on “Multiple Criteria Decision Making for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”

What the paper says

The achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires decision makers to address complex trade-offs, competing stakeholder priorities, and multidimensional performance criteria. Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) has therefore emerged as an essential analytical framework to support evidence-based policies, sustainable resource allocation, and responsible planning across sectors. This special issue, Multiple criteria decision making for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), brings together a collection of innovative contributions that advance methodological development, empirical applications, and interdisciplinary perspectives in support of sustainable development. The next eight articles in this special issue show the diversity and relevance of contemporary MCDM research. The first article, “Proposing a new integrated MEREC-NDEA algorithm for assessing and selecting the optimal sustainable suppliers: a case study,” introduces a novel hybrid evaluation model that enhances decision quality in sustainable supplier selection. In the second contribution, “Exploring barriers and motivations in the adoption of food waste mobile applications,” the authors investigate behavioral determinants of technology adoption, providing insights for reducing food waste and promoting more sustainable consumption patterns. The third article, “Performance measures of Sustainable Development Goals using SWI MCDM methods: a case of the Indian states,” applies structured weighting and MCDM methodologies to assess regional SDG performance, offering a valuable benchmarking tool for policymakers. Complementing this perspective, the fourth paper, “Finding a mix of renewable energy for different stakeholders by applying multi-criteria decision making techniques,” explores energy transition strategies that balance environmental, social, and economic considerations. Infrastructure and urban sustainability are addressed in the fifth article, “Contractors allocation for public building maintenance: a sustainable approach aligned with SDGs using AHP-TOPSIS and bi-objective optimization,” which integrates classical MCDM with bi-objective modeling to support responsible building maintenance decisions. The sixth contribution, “Sustainable reverse logistics network design: a case of waste electrical and electronic equipment management,” develops a modeling framework for circular economy practices and sustainable waste management. Entrepreneurial sustainability is examined in the seventh article, “Integrating cognitive mapping, neutrosophic logic and DEMATEL for sustainable entrepreneurship in SMEs,” where the authors propose an advanced analytical model to capture uncertainty and causal relationships in small-business sustainability decisions. The final article, “A robust composite indicator framework for evaluating Sustainable Development Goal 3 using benefit-of-the-doubt models and principal component analysis,” introduces an integrated indicator-construction approach for assessing health-related SDG performance. Together, these contributions highlight both methodological rigor and practical relevance, demonstrating how MCDM tools can effectively support sustainable development initiatives across industries, regions, and policy domains. We believe that this collection will serve as a valuable reference for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers engaged in the pursuit of the SDGs. We extend our sincere gratitude to all authors for their high-quality submissions and to the reviewers for their constructive evaluations. We also thank the editorial office for its continuous support throughout the preparation of this special issue.