4.6 Review

A Review on the Use of Life Cycle Methodologies and Tools in Sustainable Regional Development

Journal

SUSTAINABILITY
Volume 13, Issue 19, Pages -

Publisher

MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/su131910881

Keywords

life cycle management; life cycle assessment; life cycle approaches; life cycle toolbox; territorial development; sustainable development; sustainable regions; regional material flows; regional footprint

Funding

  1. Region of New Aquitaine
  2. ADEME, the French Agency for Ecological Transition
  3. Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres through the POF 4 program Changing EarthSustaining our Future, Topic 5 Landscapes of the Future

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This review examines how regional authorities currently use life cycle methodologies in their sustainable development programmes, including formal methods and non-standard approaches. The study found that regional use of various life cycle methodologies is growing, but often constrained to short life chains and with limited consideration of secondary impacts.
This review examines how life cycle methodologies are presently used by regional authorities in their sustainable development programmes. The review incorporates formal methods of life cycle assessment (LCA) as well as non-standardised approaches like life cycle management (LCM). The review describes the sustainability agenda facing regions, and a 'life cycle toolbox' that can be used at territorial level. Several parallel literature research methods were used to collect representative examples from around the world of regional life cycle approaches, identifying a variety of common and still-evolving methodologies used to address sustainability issues and applications. Results show that regional use of various life cycle methodologies from the toolbox is growing although scope is often constrained to short life chains, and with limited consideration of secondary ( spillover ) impacts. The conclusions confirm earlier findings that current life cycle tools are not always ideally structured for public sector organisations, with some not yet mature for addressing regional sustainability issues, such as biodiversity, land use and social impacts. Regional data aggregation is currently insufficient for certain methods. Further research is needed to adapt certain life cycle methodologies for regional application, but many available tools could already be further applied than is currently the case.

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