Methodologies of Sustainability Assessment and Its Development : Assessment Items, Framing, and Utilization for Management

Abstract

Methodologies of sustainability assessment（SA）were reviewed especially in the fields of Life Cycle Assessment（LCA）and Environmental Impact Assessment（EIA）, and the current state and future issues were explained. Integration of environmental LCA, life cycle costing, and social LCA for assessing sustainability of products is being progressed in the LCA field with a concept of the life cycle thinking, while SA for policy, plan, and program is being developed in the environmental assessment field. Although both movements seemed to continue, a number of challenges remained, such as selection of assessment items, boundary setting（framing issues）, positioning of SA in social decision making, and difficulty in dealing with severe impacts. We also discussed the development of SA in terms of sustainable consumption and production, relationship between producers and consumers, and the utilization of SA for business activities and public policies. For this, SA related activities which linked assessment and management initiated by The Sustainability Consortium and so forth were presented.