Combining Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis and Life-Cycle Assessment: Challenges, Proposals, and Real-World Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The literature on sustainability assessment recognizes the importance of life-cycle assessment (LCA) as a means to encompass the impacts of a product, service or process, without burden shifting. LCA focuses on environmental impacts, but the life-cycle perspective is also used in social LCA and life-cycle costing, which addressed together result in the more comprehensive life-cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA).

As LCA, or more generally LCSA, yield multiple indicators concerning a potentially large number of impact categories, multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been used to provide a synthesis of the assessment. This is useful as a means to interpret and communicate results, as well as to support policy- and decision-makers.

This Special Issue intends to gather contributions addressing the combined use of MCDA and LC approaches, namely, concerning its current challenges, new proposals and real-world application. Topics of interest include:

- Discussing the role of MCDA in LCA/LCSA studies and vice versa;

- Novel MCDA methods or variants to be used together with LCA/LCSA;

- Synthetic indicators for LCA/LCSA;

- DEA and MCDA approaches to assess eco-efficiency;

- Elicitation of MCDA parameters, including participatory approaches;

- Multiobjective optimization and LCA/LCSA

- Studies combining MCDA and LCA/LCSA in industry;

- Studies combining MCDA and LCA/LCSA in public administration and policy making.

Prof. Dr. Luis C. Dias
Prof. Dr. Fausto Freire
Guest Editors

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