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1. Introduction
Project environments are particularly vulnerable to generating conflict (Zavadskas et al., 2009). When stakes are very high, it is essential to define a problem, multiple conflicting criteria accurately; therefore, modern decision-makers (both scientists and experienced users) are required to explicitly evaluate numerous criteria, instead of making decisions based on only intuition and own experience. Well-structuring of complex issues and explicitly considering various rules lead to more informed and better decisions. The notion of sustainable development, which is increasingly omnipresent in all activity fields, is a part of the knowledge researchers in construction have to acquire as well (Zagorskas et al., 2014). Different groups of decision-makers become involved in the practical problems solution process, each group bringing along different criteria and points of view, which need resolving within a framework of understanding and mutual compromise (concessions). The problems are often characterised by several non-commensurable and conflicting (competing) criteria, and there may be no solution satisfying all requirements simultaneously. Stakeholders need a compromise solution. Complicated issues solved in the last decades assume that the decision-maker looks for a compromise between objectives of a different character: financial, ethical or others. Robust options are those solutions that represent a process result or the one which appears after some algorithmic application (Šaparauskas et al., 2011). Thus, the set of non-inferior options is a compromise solution according to the decision-makers’ preferences. A solution acquiring thus as a compromise was accepted by the two main integral conflicting components: the economy (the anthropic dimension) and the environment. Building with better energy performance entails a conflict between users’ economic objective and society’s environmental objective (Olmeda and Aguilar, 2015). Around 30–50 per cent of new or refurbished buildings lead to building-related illness. Therefore, facilities management problems need compromise solution methods of a problem for the optimal allocation of such housing in a building development considering the energy rating (Liyanage and Hadjri, 2015).
Both process and algorithm have to lead and to help the decision-maker in the difficult task of choosing the best compromise solution of the decision problem he/she faces. However, out of the many available options, the decision-maker eventually has to accept only one answer by taking into account the priorities and objectives of different stakeholders’ groups (Zavadskas et...