The multicriteria sustainability simulator comprises a simple tool for testing the effect of modifying the relative weights of the three sustainability pillars at the higher level on the total sustainability score of three different dairy cattle farming systems, in European countries. In the text that follows, valuable information on the systems whose sustainability is estimated using the DEXi method is provided.

The first dairy cattle production system refers to an example of Western European conventional semi-extensive systems (WesConv.).

The second dairy cattle production system refers to an example of Central European organic semi-extensive systems (CentOrg.).

The third dairy cattle production system refers to an example of Atlantic conventional semi-extensive systems (AtlConv.).

The total sustainability score for WesConv., CentOrg. and AtlConv. sums up the separate scores for environmental, economic and social sustainability. Each one of these separate sustainability branches consists of several levels: Indicators (first level), Criteria (first level of aggregation) and Principles (last level of aggregation) in order to better capture the whole concept of sustainability. The environmental, economic and social branches were composed of 22, 12 and 6 indicators, respectively. Each of these levels is associated with a weighting factor representing its relative importance. These weighting factors have been considered when estimating the scores in Tables 3 to 8. After having aggregated all Principles to one score for each sustainability dimension, weighting factors for each sustainability dimension are considered in order to estimate a total sustainability score before summing up. All aggregated scores are unitless and the higher the score, the higher the relevant performance of the DPS.

The multicriteria sustainability simulator, allows for modifying the latter weighting factors in order to see the effect of the relative importance of each sustainability dimension on the total sustainability score of each system.

Table 1 presents some general characteristics of these farming systems that define their profile.
Furthermore, based on the collected data from these farming systems, several environmental impacts and energy indicators were estimated (Table 2).
The environmental sustainability as evaluated based on DEXi method is presented in Table 3.
The aggregated score of the environmental sustainability pillar for the three dairy cattle farming systems is given in Table 4.
Table 5 presents the economic sustainability as evaluated based on the DEXi method.
The aggregated score of the economic sustainability pillar for the three dairy cattle farming systems is given in Table 6.
Table 7 presents the social sustainability of the three dairy cattle farming systems as evaluated based on the DEXi method.
The aggregated score of the social sustainability pillar for the three dairy cattle farming systems is given in Table 8.
 

 
 
USE OF THE MULTICRITERIA SUSTAINABILITY SIMULATOR

In order to use the sustainability simulator, please use the following link.
http://calculator.milkey-project.eu/