Page 159 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

156 8. Framework of life cycle sustainability assessment

LCSA consists of LCA for environmental assessment, lifecycle costing (LCC) for economic as-
sessment, and social life cycle assessment (SLCA) for social impact assessment (Heijungs et al.,
2010). Due to the completeness of overall analysis of sustainability, the studies related to LCSA
have increasedin recent years.ToapplyLCSAin moresituations,LCSA hasbeenextendedtothe
fuzzyframework(KouloumpisandAzapagic,2018),tieredframework(ChenandHolden,2018),
dynamic system (Onat et al., 2016a), and by combining with other theories. Instead of examining
the sustainability performances for a certain product or a service, the studies related to LCSA fo-
cusmoreonthecomparisonofmultipleobjects.LCSAcombinedwithmulticriteriadecisionmak-
ing (MCDM) has been widely used in energy (Yu and Halog, 2015; Moslehi and Reddy, 2019),
transportation (Onat et al., 2016c, Onat et al., 2016a), construction (Ferrari et al., 2019; Zheng
et al., 2019), logistics (van Kempen et al., 2017), agriculture (Moriizumi et al., 2010; Chen and
Holden, 2018), and other fields for alternatives selection or ranking.
In this chapter, the framework of LCSA is illustrated in detail and attached with
corresponding examples for further explanation in Section 6.2; the research trend and
the current progress of LCSA are summarized by reviewing literature related to LCSA in
the Section 6.3; and Section 6.4 concludes the chapter.

6.2 Framework of LCSA

LCA, LCC, and SLCA follow the same framework for analysis. In this chapter, the frame-
work of LCA defined by the international standard ISO 14044 is introduced with examples to
illustrate the operation process of LCSA.

6.2.1 Goal and scope definition
The definitions of goal and scope in LCSA are important to be clarified at the beginning of
the project. They are the keys to keep all procedures afterward following the consistent
research standards and boundary. According to ISO 14044, the goal for an LCSA test should
clearly state the intended application, the reasons for carrying out the study, the intended
audience, and whether the results are intended to be used in comparative assertions intended
to be disclosed to the public. Furthermore, the scope part should define the product system to
be studied, the functions of the product system or, in the case of comparative studies, the
systems, the functional unit, the system boundary, allocation procedures, life cycle impact
(LCI) assessment methodology and types of impacts, interpretation to be used, data require-
ments, assumptions, value choices and optional elements, limitations, data quality require-
ments, type of critical review, and type and format of the report required for the study.
Taking a solid waste management system in Regione Campania (Arena et al., 2003)as an
example, the goal and scope of this project are summarized in Table 8.1. As not all information
is provided in the article, some hypothetical adjustments had been made.
The details of this procedure are adjustable depending on the real situations of the research
objective. It is worth mentioning that if two alternatives are supposed to be compared for their
sustainability performances by conducting LCA, the goal and scope need to be corresponding
in the two assessments.