Special Issue "Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Matthias Finkbeiner
Chair of Sustainable Engineering, Department of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Office Z1, Strasse des 17, Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Website: http://www.see.tu-berlin.de
E-Mail:
Phone: +49 (0)30 314 24341
Fax: +49 (0)30 314 21720
Interests: all assessment and management tools for environmental and sustainability performance from carbon footprint; water footprint via life cycle assessment; social LCA; life cycle costing, resource efficiency; eco-efficiency towards life cycle sustainability assessment

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability is nowadays accepted by all stakeholders as a guiding principle for both public policy making and corporate strategies. However, the biggest challenge for most organisations remains in the real and substantial implementation of the sustainabilty concept. At the core of the implementation challenge is the question, how sustainability can be measured, especially for products and processes. As long as these questions are not answered, there will be no consistent development towards sustainability and the use of the term remains arbitrary.

My hypothesis is, that the systems or life cycle approach has to be applied for all sustainability dimensions (environmental, economical, social) in order to achieve reliable and robust results. This can be put in the conceptual formula based on Klöpffer:

LCSA = LCA + LCC + SLCA

LCSA -= Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment
LCA -= Environmental Life Cycle Assessment
LCC -= LCA-type Life Cycle Costing
SLCA -= Social Life Cycle Assessment

This special issue seeks to demonstrate the important role that life cycle approaches can play for measuring sustainability. It is intended to provide a forum for scientific progress on both the overall concept of life cycle sustainability assessment as well as the individual tools supporting it.

Matthias Finkbeiner
Guest Editor

Submission

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• life cycle sustainability assessment
• life cycle assessment
• life cycle costing
• social lca