Sustainability Assessment

Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (ELCA) that was developed about three decades ago demands a broadening of its scope to include lifecycle costing and social aspects of life cycle assessment as well, drawing on the three-pillar or ‘triple bottom line’ model of sustainability, which is the result of the development of the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). LCSA refers to the evaluation of all environmental, social and economic negative impacts and benefits in decision-making processes towards more sustainable products throughout their life cycle. Combination of environmental and social life cycle assessments along with life cycle costing leads to life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). This book highlights various aspects of life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA).

This work tackles the complexities of sustainability assessment and provides practical solutions and comprehensive analysis, guidance and criteria for impact assessment professionals and policy makers at all levels and in all circumstances.

Provides guidelines for assessing the sustainability of urban systems including theory, methods and case studies.

Current and expanding human activities are moving us towards ever deeper unsustainability. While there is no single, simple means of reversing the invidious biophysical trends and redirecting the distribution of benefits, one necessary step is to approach every new and renewed undertaking as an opportunity to deliver maximum multiple, mutually reinforcing, fairly distributed and lasting gains. Finding the best options for enhancing such gains by comparing alternatives, addressing all the key requirements for progress towards sustainability and avoiding significant adverse effects, is the essential purpose of sustainability assessment. This book addresses the theory and practice of sustainability assessment applications, drawing from experiences globally in a variety of sectors and presenting lessons learned. Diverse international case studies from professionals and academics demonstrate progress so far in exploring openings, testing approaches to application and establishing best practice. The book illustrates means of specifying generic sustainability criteria for the context of particular applications, reports on the resulting insights, and examines the barriers and opportunities for further advances. This book is an important resource for students, academics and professionals in the areas of Governance, Environmental Assessment, Planning and Policy Making, Corporate Social Responsibility and Applied Sustainability.

Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment for Decision-Making: Methodologies and Case Studies gives readers a comprehensive introduction to life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) methodology for sustainability measurement of industrial systems, proposing an efficiency methodology for stakeholders and decision-makers. Featuring the latest methods and case studies, the book will assist researchers in environmental sciences and energy to develop the best methods for LCA, as well as aiding those practitioners who are responsible for making decisions for promoting sustainable development. The past, current status and future of LCSA, Life Cycle Assessment method (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA), the methodology of LCSA, typical LCSA case studies, limitations of LCSA, and life cycle aggregated sustainability index methods are all covered in this multidisciplinary book. Includes models for assessing sustainability in environmental, energy engineering and economic scenarios Features case studies that help define the advantages and obstacles of real world applications Presents a complete view, from theory to practice, of a life cycle approach by exploring the methods and tools of sustainability assessment, analysis and design of sustainability assessment

Currently the writing on the subject is limited and comprises, for the most part, guidance documents and completed assessments.

Sustainability assessment is now emerging as a more transparent, comprehensive, integrated and far-sighted approach to decision making. Its basic demand is that all significant undertakings must make a positive contribution to sustainability. To apply this test, decision makers need criteria based on the core requirements of sustainability and the particularities of the context. As well, they need appropriately designed public processes; guidance on the weighing of alternatives, trade-offs and compromises; a supportive policy framework; suitable tools and inspiring examples. Drawing from transdisciplinary theory and practical case experience, the book addresses these matters and many of the surrounding controversies. While sustainability assessment must always be adjusted to particular circumstances, the generic approach set out in this book is applicable virtually anywhere.

Sustainability Assessment is a comprehensive compilation of all the known policy factors related to sustainability. This book outlines all of the elements and considerations of community aspects of policy evaluation in an effort to reduce the future consequences on resources and environmental sustainability. The basic assumption behind it is that sustainability, though oriented to resources and meeting demands, starts from formulation of policy. Policies are so interrelated that all policies have some roles to play toward sustainability. Helps policymakers integrate the objectives of sustainability into policy actions in a given socio-political environment and plan a strategy for policy implementation Includes some policy factors that have not been discussed in other texts