An introduction to sustainable development and LCSA

Fritz Balkau, Alberto Bezama and Guido Sonnemann

Chapter 1 in Handbook on Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment, 2024, pp 2-16 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Sustainable development has become a major concept everywhere. Since its initial formulation by the Brundtland Commission, its meaning has broadened as stakeholders adapt it to their concerns. Its use by the United Nations in 2015 to frame a series of objectives and targets - the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - gave the term more substance. But while the targets are well described, the roadmap to reach them is often ill-defined. Missing in many of the posited cures to planetary ills is a life cycle view. This first chapter sets out the sustainability context for the subsequent, more technical contributions. After first looking at the terminological conundrum, the chapter describes the life cycle perspective of sustainable solutions, before seeing how current methods perform in such a framework. The chapter ends with a discussion on how the SDGs themselves might evolve. A life cycle toolbox is proposed to facilitate the evolution of available methods.

Keywords: Business and Management; Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Environment; Geography; Politics and Public Policy Sociology and Social Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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