Agriculture is a major contributor to global anthropogenic emissions, such as waste production and greenhouse gases. In order to reduce these negative impacts, a circular economy should be applied to agriculture waste management. Processes for evaluating treatment and valorization options are fundamental to the implementation of long-term, economically viable, ecologically sound, and socially acceptable policies and practices. In this field, multi-criteria decision analysis methods (MCDAs) can offer a holistic perspective on the decision-making processes. This study deeply explores this area of research by conducting an extensive and critical review of the studies that have used MCDA approaches to support agricultural waste management. The aim is to better understand how MCDA methods have been applied (in an integrated manner or as complementary approaches) and how stakeholders have been involved. The research conducted underlines how MCDAs are now widely used to support decision-making in this area, as well as being increasingly applied in multi-methodologies. This study is part of an ongoing Next-Generation-EU-integrated, large-scale, multi-disciplinary research program, The National Research Centre for Agricultural Technologies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the relationship between people’s behaviors and residential spaces, bringing to public and academic attention, on the one hand, the exacerbation of pre-existing problems and, on the other, the potential of spaces, such as communal gardens and apartment-block terraces, to become important resources of sociability or privacy. Overall, this raises the question of how to assess the responsiveness of the existing residential stock to needs that transcend the traditional concept of housing adequacy—e.g., the need for adaptable, open, and livable spaces. This research moves from the assumption that underused spaces in residential neighborhoods represent a crucial asset for creating new economic and social values through architectural and urban projects. Consequently, moving from an in-depth observation of a selection of public housing buildings in Turin as a paradigmatic case study, the aim is to explore the potential for the adaptive reuse of residential spaces at different scales—from the apartment to the neighborhoods—highlighting the implications for design. In doing so, the paper puts forward a methodological approach, which widens the way housing adequacy is normally assessed, by focusing on the possibility of transformation of often neglected spatial resources.

This paper explores the role of the aesthetics in Group Decision and Negotiation (GDN) practice, specifically how it affects the methods and the cognitive processes in the architectural field. We intend aesthetics as“scientia cognitionis sensitivæ”, a particular process and way of knowing and experiencing the problem through senses, imagination and empathy. We argue that (a) aesthetics and aesthetic features can (and do) convey knowledge about the problem; (b) we can distinguish between two kinds of aesthetics, one of the process and one of the product and (c) the aesthetics can contribute to create a “plural subject”. The issue is investigated through a decision problem about the transformation of an iconic building in the centre of Turin (Italy), in two ways: (1) by merging the Strategic Choice Approach (SCA) with architectural design and (2) by approaching the same issue with Storytelling, as a method for problem-based instruction. Considering the aesthetics as a specific form of language, the paper offers innovative considerations about the role of representation and visualisation tools and models—drawing, scheme, diagrams, but also video and text—as support for group decisions and negotiations, in the construction of knowledge within decisional processes.

Within a global strategy for the pursuit of Sustainable Development, the governments are responsible for following, developing, and reviewing the 2030 Agenda at global, national, and regional levels. However, it is possible to observe a lack, acknowledged by the scientific debate, of effective implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this context, the paper intends to contribute to addressing this gap in methodological and operational terms, focusing on SDG11, and more specifically on two of its targets: 11.1 (Affordable Housing) and 11.3 (Inclusive and Sustainable Urbanization). In this sense, the research focuses on cities as crucial points of intervention to tackle global challenges since they represent the places with greatest concentration of population. This paper proposes a new set of indicators for monitoring targets 11.1 and 11.3 of SDG11 capable of supporting public policymakers in observing the Italian territory. More specifically, the research provides: i) the state of the art of the existing indicators of the targets in analysis; ii) the selection criteria and gaps to be considered for reviewing indicators; iii) the modalities of implementation; iv) a new set of indicators to support the development of urban policies.