Environmental evaluation Methodology as part, of the project multi-aspect evaluation of the portfolio of ISAGEN options

ISAGEN designed and applied a multi-aspect methodology to classify and compare projects of the company's electricity generation options portfolio. It was developed from a holistic vision, integrating multidisciplinary information from the economic, environmental and technical aspects. This helped to classify the alternatives based on the sum of the values obtained for the different considered aspects. This document presents, in general form, the procedure adopted for the index formulation and selection of factors including the variables corresponding to the sub-aspects (or environmental dimensions) physical, biotic and social. The investigation's work, selection and classification of the variables were developed by an interdisciplinary group of experimented professionals in the environmental evaluation of projects. The integration of the three sub-aspects (physical, biotic and social) resulted in a hierarchy of projects based on environmental considerations, which were finally articulated with the respective values obtained from the technical and economical aspects. In general, the results obtained in each sub-aspect agreed with the hierarchy of projects based on an expert concept previous to the method application. In synthesis, it was observed that this technique is of great utility to make comparisons and general classifications because it allows to take advantage of information with different characteristics and include assumptions or artificial modifiable methodological items that reflect the structure of the deciding agents preferences at any given time