Sustainability Assessment: A Review of an Integration of Life Cycle Assessment Methodologies–Product, Process and from Companies Perspective

Terminology in the field of sustainability is acknowledged globally and at the national level along with its dimensions. Awareness regarding the importance of sustainability at a product level, process level and also from companies' perspective has increased rapidly and has gained much attention. To enhance the sustainability thought and to assimilate the aspects of the environmental, social and economic, different sustainability assessment tools are available to measure and compare the environmental impacts. An environmental impact includes those emissions into the environment that begins with a mining of the raw material till the product is being re-used. These emissions contribute to an extensive scope of impact in the context of change in climatic condition, pollution etc. Now, these days assessment of the life cycle also known as life cycle assessment (LCA) is carried out to analyze the impacts on the environment of the aforementioned sustainability indicators that are linked to a product or with the product life cycle. Sustainability indicators and impact assessment act as an important tool which is helpful in making the course of action and also exchanging the information in the context of the environment, social and economic ways. Similarly, for economic dimension life cycle costing analysis is done considering the total cost along with the product lifecycle and to consider the social impact at company level or at product level social life cycle (SLCA) assessment is carried out. The paper introduces the notion of sustainability with the life cycle assessment tools along with the methodology at a product level, process level and also at a company level. The core aim is to explain the concept of sustainability followed by the brief explanation of sustainability metrics or indicators in this review paper. In the next section Sustainability assessment with the tools and methodology is discussed. Lastly, Implications, Conclusion and future research is mention