CIEMAT
Traditionally, when deciding between alternative investment projects, most decision makers focused on their techno-economic aspects (their technical viability as well as their investment and operation & maintenance costs). However, other criteria have started to be taken into account such as the potential environmental impacts and related consequences for ecosystems as well as social impacts such as compliance to good labor conditions or healthy environment[1,2]. The consideration and integration of the three types of sustainability impacts ?economic, social and environmental- is achieved by using the so-called Integrated Assessments (IA), but there is not a universal meaning or method for its attainment [3]. According to [4], one possible
way to conduct an IA is connecting the different types of impacts (e.g. physical and
socioeconomic variables), and other way consists on the integration of such assessments into the decision making processes [4].