Framework of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

With the development of economics and technologies, the public has begun to realize that low environmental impact is not the only target for sustainable development. The economic performances and the social impacts also play significant roles in sustainability of the study object. Consequently, a new sustainability assessment method has been raised—life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA)—which involves life cycle assessment (LCA) for environmental assessment, life cycle costing (LCC) for economic analysis, and social life cycle assessment (SLCA) for social performance evaluation. Several companies and researchers have adopted LCSA in real life case studies, and LCSA has become a widely used sustainability assessment tool. In this chapter, the frameworks of LCA, LCC, and SLCA are introduced, respectively, with case studies afterward. Then the relevant articles of LCSA are reviewed and summarized for analyzing the research trend.