## 3 Results
### Environmental Sustainability Evaluation  
The overall environmental sustainability of the tested cropping systems varied considering the different crop management (Figure 2). In particular, the \"high\" score was reached by ECO treatment, while a \"medium-high\" and \"medium-low\" score was obtained for GM and NO ASC, respectively. The nodal aggregate attribute \"production capacity\" resulted in \"medium\" in ECO and GM treatments and \"medium-low\" in NO ASC (Figure 3). The ECO treatment scored \"high\" value for the aggregate attributes \"soil and water preservation\" and \"resource preservation\", while GM and NO ASC reached \"medium-high\" and \"medium\" scores, respectively, for these same aggregates. The \"biodiversity conservation\" ranged from \"high\" in ECO to \"low\" in NO ASC. The sustainability evaluation of all the components (from the overall sustainability to the basic attributes) for the three scenarios is reported in Figure 4, as a comparison among the different tested systems. It is also reported the level of sustainability (from \"sustainable\" to \"not sustainable\") of each item, according to the specific linguistic scale (from three to seven) described in Figure 1. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Crop**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Energy**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**ECO**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**GM**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**NO ASC**} \\  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Equivalent**} & & & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{\
\begin{tabular}{c} **Coupling** \\ \end{tabular} } & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**MJ kg-1**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**MJ ha-1**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**St. dev.**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**MJ ha-1**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**St. dev.**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**MJ ha-1**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**St. dev.**} \\  & & & & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{
\begin{tabular}{c} **Cauliflower** \\ \end{tabular} } & 1 & 480 & \(\pm\) & 48 & - & - & - & - \\  & 0.9 & 5944 & \(\pm\) & 3361 & - & - & - & - \\
**Lettuce** & 0.7 & 8643 & \(\pm\) & 1392 & - & - & - & - \\
**Tomato** & 0.75 & 5185 & \(\pm\) & 2422 & 23,162 & \(\pm\) & 10,376 & 13,599 & \(\pm\) & 9178 \\ \hline \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Total Energy output (MJ ha-1)**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**20,252**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**23,162**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**13,599**} \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Crop ((MJ ha-1 values \(\pm\) standard deviation) and total energy output divided by the management strategies. ECO = organic system with the full implementation of the agro-ecological strategies; GM = organic system with the introduction of the agro-ecological service crops (ASC); NO ASC = organic system without ASC. Figure 2: Comparison among the different crop management strategies: evaluation results of the multi-criteria decision model _DEXi-met_ on the overall sustainability. ECO = organic system with the full implementation of the agro-ecological strategies; GM = organic system with the introduction of the agro-ecological service crops (ASC); NO ASC = organic system without ASC. Figure 4: Evaluation results from _DEXi-met_ model from the overall environmental sustainability to the basic attributes. ECO = organic system with the full implementation of the agro-ecological strategies; GM = organic system with the introduction of the agro-ecological service crops (ASC); NO ASC = organic system without ASC. Figure 3: Comparison among the different crop management strategies: evaluation results of the multi-criteria decision model _DEXi-met_ on the four main aggregate attributes (“production capacity”, “soil and water preservation”, “resources preservation”, and “biodiversity conservation”). ECO = organic system with the full implementation of the agro-ecological strategies; GM = organic system with the introduction of the agro-ecological service crops (ASC); NO ASC = organic system without ASC. The \"production capacity\" aggregate attribute is generated from the first order aggregate attributes \"control of pests and diseases\", \"physical-chemical fertility\", and \"production\".