45
© The Author(s) 2016
R. Clift, A. Druckman (eds.), Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20571-7_3
Chapter 3
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment:
What Is It and What Are Its Challenges?
Jeroen Guinée
Abstract Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) has developed fast over the
last three decades. Today, LCA is widely applied and used as a tool for supporting
policies and performance-based regulation, notably concerning bioenergy. Over the
past decade, LCA has broadened to also include life cycle costing (LCC) and social
LCA (SLCA), drawing on the three-pillar or ‘triple bottom line’ model of sustainability. With these developments, LCA has broadened from merely environmental
assessment to a more comprehensive life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA).
LCSA has received increasing attention over the past years, while at the same time,
its meaning and contents are not always suffi ciently clear. In this chapter, we therefore addressed the question: what are LCSA practitioners actually doing in practice? We distinguished two sub-questions: which defi nition(s) do they adopt and
what challenges do they face? To answer these questions, LCSA research published
over the past half decade has been analysed, supplemented by a brief questionnaire
to researchers and practitioners. This analysis revealed two main defi nitions of
LCSA. Based on these two defi nitions, we distinguished three dimensions along
which LCSA is expanding when compared to environmental LCA: (1) broadening
of impacts, LCSA = LCA + LCC + SLCA; (2) broadening level of analysis, product-,
sector- and economy-wide questions and analyses; and (3) deepening, including
other than just technological relations, such as physical, economic and behavioural
relations. From this analysis, it is clear that the vast majority of LCSA research so
far has focused on the ‘broadening of impacts’ dimension. The challenges most
frequently cited concern the need for more practical examples of LCSA, effi cient
ways of communicating LCSA results and the need for more data and methods
particularly for SLCA indicators and comprehensive uncertainty assessment. We
conclude that the three most crucial challenges to be addressed fi rst are developing
quantitative and practical indicators for SLCA, life cycle-based approaches to evaluate scenarios for sustainable futures and practical ways to deal with uncertainties
and rebound effects.
J. Guinée (*)
Faculty of Sciences , Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Department of Industrial
Ecology, Leiden University , P.O.box 9518 , 2300 RA Leiden , The Netherlands
e-mail: Guinee@cml.leidenuniv.nl
© The Author(s) 2016
R. Clift, A. Druckman (eds.), Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20571-7_3
Chapter 3
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment:
What Is It and What Are Its Challenges?
Jeroen Guinée
Abstract Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) has developed fast over the
last three decades. Today, LCA is widely applied and used as a tool for supporting
policies and performance-based regulation, notably concerning bioenergy. Over the
past decade, LCA has broadened to also include life cycle costing (LCC) and social
LCA (SLCA), drawing on the three-pillar or ‘triple bottom line’ model of sustainability. With these developments, LCA has broadened from merely environmental
assessment to a more comprehensive life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA).
LCSA has received increasing attention over the past years, while at the same time,
its meaning and contents are not always suffi ciently clear. In this chapter, we therefore addressed the question: what are LCSA practitioners actually doing in practice? We distinguished two sub-questions: which defi nition(s) do they adopt and
what challenges do they face? To answer these questions, LCSA research published
over the past half decade has been analysed, supplemented by a brief questionnaire
to researchers and practitioners. This analysis revealed two main defi nitions of
LCSA. Based on these two defi nitions, we distinguished three dimensions along
which LCSA is expanding when compared to environmental LCA: (1) broadening
of impacts, LCSA = LCA + LCC + SLCA; (2) broadening level of analysis, product-,
sector- and economy-wide questions and analyses; and (3) deepening, including
other than just technological relations, such as physical, economic and behavioural
relations. From this analysis, it is clear that the vast majority of LCSA research so
far has focused on the ‘broadening of impacts’ dimension. The challenges most
frequently cited concern the need for more practical examples of LCSA, effi cient
ways of communicating LCSA results and the need for more data and methods
particularly for SLCA indicators and comprehensive uncertainty assessment. We
conclude that the three most crucial challenges to be addressed fi rst are developing
quantitative and practical indicators for SLCA, life cycle-based approaches to evaluate scenarios for sustainable futures and practical ways to deal with uncertainties
and rebound effects.
J. Guinée (*)
Faculty of Sciences , Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Department of Industrial
Ecology, Leiden University , P.O.box 9518 , 2300 RA Leiden , The Netherlands
e-mail: Guinee@cml.leidenuniv.nl