###### Abstract  
In the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in sustainable agricultural techniques and the environmental evaluation of the effects of agricultural practices. In the present study, we evaluated both the production capacity of organic horticultural systems, and the ex-post sustainability through a new multi-attribute decision model named _\"DEXi-met\"_. This qualitative model is able to estimate the environmental sustainability of cropping systems managed with different agro-ecological approaches. In particular, we compared the following three horticultural systems: (i) ECO, an organic system with full implementation of agro-ecological strategies (agro-ecological services crops (ASC), strip cultivation, and organic amendment); (ii) GM, an organic system with the introduction of the ASC; (iii) NO ASC, an organic system without ASC. The treatments with ASC presence (ECO and GM) showed similar total energy outputs (substantially higher than the NO ASC), indicating the positive effect of this agro-ecological practice. The findings pointed out that the ECO system, which followed the principles of natural ecosystems, can contribute to building up more complex agro-ecosystems, increasing both resilience and biodiversity. This management strategy reached a good compromise between the production of vegetable cropping systems and environmental sustainability achievement. Then, it is possible to optimize the use of natural resources, support climate adaptation, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Keywords:qualitative multi-attribute model; total energy output; agro-ecological service crops; ex-post sustainability; organic systems +
Footnote †: journal: Applied Soft  
of agro-ecological service crops (ASC; [4]), utilization of soil amendments [5], and crop/livestock mixing can increase agro-ecosystem diversity and complexity both over space and time [6]. A prerequisite to the systems sustainability implementation is the development, improvement, and/or choice of the best possible assessment methods. In fact, there is a need to determine the reliability of innovative management practices with respect to the conventional ones, and to clarify the benefits and the drawbacks of the full or partial application of an agro-ecological approach. To this end, several approaches to measure, analyze, and assess sustainability have been developed [7]. The different methodologies can be classified on the basis of: (i) the typology of indicators used, from qualitative appraisals to quantitative analytical evaluations [8]; (ii) the scale of analysis, from the single plot to the whole farm or regional scales [9]; (iii) the systems typology, from orchards [10] to arable or horticultural crops [11]; and the timing of analysis, as ex-ante or ex-post evaluation [12]. Within this large number of methodologies, a growing interest focuses on multi-method approaches, which aim at accounting for the complexity of sustainability issues [13]. In this framework, the multi-criteria analysis (MCA) decision-making methods can handle a typical decision-making problem related to sustainability assessment. The MCA are increasingly gaining importance in agriculture, since they can consider multiple and conflicting criteria and, at the same time, they are able to tackle complex decisional problems breaking them down in easily understandable elements [14; 15; 16]. In recent years, the scientific community has developed several qualitative MCA tools for the sustainability assessment of different agricultural systems [17; 18], based on a computer program for multi-attribute decision-making, defined as \"DEXi\" by [PERSON] et al. [19]. Among them, the _DEXi-met_ tool was recently developed, specifically for the ex-post evaluation in organic horticulture, and it was applied to compare different crop rotations in Mediterranean conditions [20]. In this model, a cropping system was considered instead of a single cash crop, in order to have a broader idea of the environmental sustainability of the system.