Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: Methodology and Framework

Abstract

The main objective of this chapter is to elucidate the concept of life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) from the viewpoint of a life cycle. The idea of sustainability is in effect at a policy level, but it needs to be expanded in the business sector. The chapter starts with a brief introduction of sustainability followed by various approaches to perform the sustainability assessment. It also discusses how to perform the life cycle sustainability assessment using a combination of three life cycle approaches, which is a commonly used approach. The three life cycle techniques (lie cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing (LCC), and life cycle assessment (S-LCA)) are explained in further sections. Out of these three LCA techniques, only LCA guidelines are defined by ISO 14,040, whereas for LCC and S-LCA, the framework is still under development. Therefore, LCSA requires further improvement in the economic and social perspective, adding more accurate databases (especially for the Indian context).