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6
From LCA to Sustainability Assessment

6.1
Sustainability

The discussions during the first Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
(SETAC) Europe life cycle assessment (LCA) symposium 1991 in the Dutch
city of Leiden 1) resulted – at least in Europe – in a restriction of the LCA to
the impact of products on the environment. It had been clear from the outset
that a complete sustainability analysis must include socio-economic dimensions.
Around 10 years later these extensions to the product-related LCA shifted again
to the foreground and developed into an objective of research, trial/testing and
standardisation.
What exactly is meant by the notion of sustainability, which is often used with
little precision? 2)
In Germany it was first used in forestry. A pioneer in this field was Hans Carl
von Carlowitz with his book ‘Sylvicultura Oeconomica’, which was published 1713
in Leipzig. Carlowitz was no forester, but in his position as Superintendent of
3)
the Saxon silver mines he needed large quantities of timber and found that the
German forests were in a very bad condition. Forestry was his life time hobby,
and he stated the principle of ‘sustainable forestry’, which proposed that only
as much wood as would regenerate should be logged. He had already perceived
interconnections between environmental factors and economic and social interests
(as we would formulate today). Even if the book, because of its baroque language
and gothic printing, is not easy to read, the message is nevertheless clear and quite
relevant for today’s sustainability discussion. The German word ‘nachhaltig’ was
4)
even translated into French (‘soutenu’) and via this into the now familiar English
term sustainable. 5)
To date this idea has been associated with the global development policy defined
6)
in the Brundtland report from which the following lines are often quoted:
1) SETAC Europe (1992).
2) Kuhlman and Farrington (2010).
3) Carlowitz (2000; reprint 2000).
4) Now mainly: durable.
5) Grober (2010).
6) WCED (1987) and Hauff (1987).

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): A Guide to Best Practice, First Edition.
Walter Kl¨ opffer and Birgit Grahl.
c 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. Published 2014 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.