Creating an integrative assessment system for green schools in Iran

• Scientific support for green school selection based on fuzzy structured analyses.
• Integrative Assessment System evaluated schools with 6 criteria, 15 sub-criteria.
• Mikhailov method, superior to other review methods, checked compatibility matrix.
• Ghazanfari/Nojavan process detects inconsistencies in incompatibility matrix.
• Management criteria found key to evaluating Iran's green schools.

Many assessment systems for green schools exist to guide schools toward environmentally responsible choices. To identify a nation's green schools, an assessment system must be developed for their selection. When green school standards are lacking, measures must be created, including an information model enabling decision makers to recognize these schools. The aim of this study is to create an integrative system for assessing green schools in Iran and to develop scientific support in school selection, in order to avoid hasty choices and to respect the selection of these schools. In this study, by using fuzzy multi-criteria decision making methods, the criteria of green schools have been gauged across 6 criteria and 15 sub-criteria, using a consistent testing methodology. This renders paired comparisons more reliable. Ghazanfari and Mikhailov methods were utilized. To evaluate practical applications, the developed criteria were used in assessing 5 selected green schools in Tehran. The integrative assessment system with proposed criteria showed that green schools 5, 3, 4, 1 and 2, respectively, have earned first to fifth rank in terms of proposed criteria for green schools. Establishing an assessment system and its application through methodology limits incorrect choices, removes the green schools' selection from the domain of non-specialists, restrains subjective methods, and puts selection into the hands of professionals and specialists with scientific support. Due to the need to communicate effectively, to engage experts and to address the complexity involved in the assessment system for green schools, the proposed integrative system was designed to assess green schools.