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The aim of this paper is to critically reflect on the use of social preferences by means of weights in participatory multi-criteria evaluation (MCE). Insights are drawn from systems theory as the conceptual base and from empirical case study work on renewable energy scenario assessments for Austria at two different levels (national and local). In an MCE social preferences express the values of stakeholders; these complement the facts captured in the impact matrix describing the case/s studied. In this two-level study, the social preferences expressed by stakeholders were first transformed into weights by employing the SIMOS method. For each criterion a weight was calculated, representing the importance of the criterion for a sustainable energy system. In a second step these weights were used as an input in an MCE (using PROMETHEE I). The same methodology was used for both case studies. Minor differences between the two MCE process levels occurred for practical reasons, such as timing. For example, no group weighting was carried out on the national level, and certain criteria were measured by different indicators on the two levels. Also, the scenarios differed somewhat by the degree of detail of the exploration, and the language used to describe the scenarios was more technical on the national level. The influence of the weights on the rankings of the scenarios have been analysed through sensitivity analyses. The analyses exhibit very robust results for the local level, in particular for the highest ranked scenarios. The rankings of the less favoured scenarios change with substantial changes in the weights [provide some indication as to how …