Journal Article

Review of life-cycle based methods for absolute environmental sustainability assessment and their applications

Ryberg, Morten, Hauschild, Michael Zwicky, Chandrakumar, Chanjief, Kerkhof, Annemarie, Roos, Sandra, Sandin, Gustav, Sala, Serenella, Mueller, Carina, Bjørn, Anders, Gondran, Natacha, Sim, Sarah, Boulay, Anne-Marie, McLaren, Sarah, Doka, Gabor, Owsianiak, Miko aj, Vargas-Gonzalez, Marcial, Margni, Manuele, Peters, Greg, King, Henry, Fang, Kai

2020

Overview

In many regions and at the planetary scale, human pressures on the environment exceed levels that natural systems can sustain. These pressures are caused by networks of human activities, which often extend across countries and continents due to global trade. This has led to an increasing requirement for methods that enable absolute environmental sustainability assessment (AESA) of anthropogenic systems and which have a basis in life cycle assessment (LCA). Such methods enable the comparison of environmental impacts of products, companies, nations, etc, with an assigned share of environmental carrying capacity for various impact categories. This study is the first systematic review of LCA-based AESA methods and their applications. After developing a framework for LCA-based AESA methods, we identified 45 relevant studies through an initial survey, database searches and citation analysis. We characterized these studies according to their intended application, impact categories, basis of carrying capacity estimates, spatial differentiation of environmental model and principles for assigning carrying capacity. We then characterized all method applications and synthesized their results. Based on this assessment, we present recommendations to practitioners on the selection and use of existing LCA-based AESA methods, as well as ways to perform assessments and communicate results to decision-makers. Furthermore, we identify future research priorities intended to extend coverage of all components of the proposed method framework, improve modeling and increase the applicability of methods.

• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Subject: absolute environmental sustainability / anthropogenic effect / Anthropogenic factors / Anthropogenic systems / Carrying capacity / case study review / Citation analysis / Computer Science / Decision making / environmental assessment / Environmental carrying capacities / Environmental impact / Environmental model / Environmental modeling / Environmental Sciences / Environmental sustainability / global trade / human activity / Human influences / International trade / Life cycle / Life cycle analysis / Life cycle assessment / Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) / Life cycles / Modeling and Simulation / planetary boundaries / Research priorities / safe operating space / Search engines / sharing principle / Spatial differentiation / spatial variation / Sustainability / Sustainable development / Systematic Review