A consensus-driven hybrid delphi and analytic hierarchy process framework for evaluating sustainable food waste treatment alternatives

Food waste constitutes one of the largest components of municipal solid waste worldwide and represents a significant environmental, social, and economic challenge. Inadequate treatment and disposal practices contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, leachate contamination, and resource inefficiencies. Selecting the most sustainable food waste treatment option requires a structured, transparent, and consensus-based decision-making approach. This study proposes a Hybrid Delphi-Analytical Hierarchy Process (HD-AHP) framework to evaluate alternative food waste treatment systems using Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM). Expert consensus was obtained through a two round Delphi survey to identify and prioritize environmental, social, financial, and technical criteria. These criteria were then integrated into an AHP model to rank treatment alternatives. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to assess model robustness. Results indicate that environmental criteria received the highest priority, followed by social, financial, and technical considerations. Among the evaluated alternatives, Anaerobic Digestion (AD) demonstrated the highest overall sustainability performance, particularly under financial and environmental sensitivity scenarios. The proposed HD-AHP framework provides a transferable and adaptable decision-support tool for policymakers and stakeholders seeking sustainable food waste management strategies across diverse regional contexts. Clinical Trial Number: Not appplicable.

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