Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment—A Survey Based Potential Future Development for Implementation and Interpretation

Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) provides valuable support for stakeholders and interested third parties regarding sustainability assessments, environmental footprints, emission optimization, and corporate communication.  The state-of-the-art LCSA framework extends the scope of life cycle assessment (LCA) by economic and social dimensions – life cycle costing (LCC) and social life cycle assessment (S-LCA), respectively.  LCA, LCC and S-LCA are complementary pillars that are applied to the same functional unit and an equivalent system boundary.  Weighting between the three pillars is not permitted in the interpretation, the assessments are treated equally, and the under performance of one pillar cannot be compensated for by another.