The Center of Technology Assessment in Stuttgart (Germany) constructed four energy scenarios for the year 2005 and 2020 referring to the German State of Baden-Wurttemberg. All these scenarios are based on the promise of the German government to reduce Carbon dioxide emissions by 25% in the year 2005, and there is a commitment of a 45% reduction for the year 2020. These reduction goals can be reached only if energy conservation measures and waste energy utilization are part of the energy policy structure. This paper describes a group evaluation process of these scenarios. Major stakeholder groups such as the unions, the energy industry, public utilities and others, were asked to develop criteria for evaluating these scenarios and they use these criteria to perform a multi-attribute evaluation process. Although the scenarios with a large amount of waste heat utilization received favorable ratings by almost all groups, their chance of being implemented was regarded as rather unrealistic. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.