LCSA Definitions Adopted in Practice

In order to find out which definition of LCSA practitioners adopt in practice, a bibliometric analysis was carried out of the ISI Web of Science (WoS) published by Thomson Reuters. The keywords used under 'topic' for searching 'all databases' were 'life cycle sustainability assessment*' OR 'life cycle sustainability analys*' for the time span = 2000–2014 (accessed on 24/11/2014). The result of this bibliometric analysis is shown in Table 3.1. References basically covering the same topic and originating from the same research institute were grouped together. For example, Heijungs et al. (2010), Guinée and Heijungs (2011) and Guinée et al. (2011) basically cover the same topic (presenting an LCSA framework covering all three dimensions of the LCSA definition) and originate from the same research institute (CML). In addition, references that despite the use of LCSA had little or no connection to LCSA and the two questions posed here were eliminated from the results. Put more precisely, a reference was excluded from further analysis if it could not comply with one or more of the following criteria:

• The term LCSA was used to refer to one of the two (revised or otherwise) definitions of LCSA discussed above.

• If the reference focused on broadening of impacts, it should include analyses of all three pillars (e.g. LCA + LCC + SLCA).

• If the reference focused on broadening of the level of analysis and/or deepening the analysis, it should do so as part of LCSA.

The resulting (groups of) references were then analysed on their coverage of the three dimensions mentioned above (see also Table 3.1).

The bibliometric analysis resulted in about 30 articles covering the topic of LCSA (Table 3.1). Table 3.1 shows that almost all of the LCSA studies published so far focusonthe'broadeningofimpacts'dimension:LCSA = LCA + LCC + SLCA.Among these studies are many case studies. In addition, explorations have been made to widen the scope of the three pillars to include, for example, cultural aspects (Pizzirani et al. 2014). Along a similar line, Jørgensen et al. (2013) argue that when fully adopting the WCED (1987) definition of sustainability, LCA and SLCA in particular 'should be expanded to better cover how product life cycles affect poverty and produced capital'. Only a few studies report on the 'broadening of the level of analysis' and/or 'deepening' dimensions; most of these studies are reviews or methodological by nature.

The main keywords popping up among the ISIE-LCSA membership from the response concerning the question on their preferred definition of LCSA are 'environmental-social-economic' besides 'product', 'sustainability' and 'assessment'.

From both the bibliometric analysis and the brief questionnaire, it becomes obvious that the vast majority of LCSA articles have focused on the 'broadening of impacts' dimension: LCSA = LCA + LCC + SLCA. However, this may rather be a limitation of our bibliometric analysis since we only searched for articles including the terms life cycle sustainability assessment(s) or life cycle sustainability analysis(es), while many articles in the 'broadening of the level of analysis' (like IOA) and 'deepening' (like rebound modelling and uncertainty analysis) domains may not use these terms in their topical descriptions. This immediately touches upon a problem of too encompassing or too strict definitions: the Guinée et al. (2011) definition of LCSA includes broadening of the level of analysis and deepen-

Table 3.1 LCSA references as a result from the bibliometric analysis of the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science (WoS) databases on 'life cycle sustainability assessment*' OR 'life cycle sustainability analys*' for the time span = 2000–2014 (accessed on 24/11/2014), classified on their coverage of the three dimensions of LCSA

Y Yes, N No

aThis reference is a workshop report

ing, while research in these dimensions is often developed as specific approaches rather than topics under the umbrella of LCSA.