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The purpose of this paper is to explore how sustainability can become a source of competitive advantage for mature manufacturing sectors where technologies are standardized, and innovation is mainly generated across the value chain and not by individual companies.

From the methodological point of view, this research estimates the sustainability status of ceramic production in the Sassuolo district (Italy), using the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) model, and changing the observation point for the analysis, from the enterprise (micro level) to the entire sector (meso level).

This paper provides an analysis of the environmental, economic and social impacts of the four main types of ceramic tiles manufactured in Italy, both in aggregate terms for the entire sector and per square meter of product.

The methodological approach used in this research is easy to replicate both for companies when designing their sustainability strategies and for public decision makers when assessing the sustainability performance of a sector or supply chain.

For the first time, a socio-economic impact assessment is proposed for the ceramic sector, conducted in parallel with the environmental impact assessment through stakeholder mapping and prioritization.

This paper conceptualizes the theme of relations and interdependencies between ceramic producers organized in industrial districts and the territories in which they operate in order to determine empirically the sustainability performance of Italian ceramic sector, using the LCSA model with a territorial extension that presupposes an innovative contribution to current literature and practice.

In this paper, of exploratory character, the purpose of this paper is to propose the analysis of the life cycle for assessing the environmental, economic, and social impact in the activity of recovery, restoration, and valorization of Cultural Heritage.

The analysis protocol is applied to the case of recovery and restoration processes and then outlining the salient features of what may become a model of Cultural Heritage Life Cycle Management (CH-LCM).

The authors propose the approach of the life cycle, normally used to assess the impact of materials, processes or products, to the management of cultural heritage as an innovative methodology with great potential.

The methodology for this sector is highly innovative, especially in its interdisciplinary approach, through the use of different technical, historical, and economic skills which can provide the tools for the preparation of a management plan according to the logic of the life cycle.

Sustainable manufacturing is gaining prominence in light of the rising environmental and social concerns worldwide. One major task to enhance manufacturing sustainability is assessment of the current state of sustainability of a manufacturing firm. This paper reviews the existing sustainability assessment approaches applicable for manufacturing firms and observes that most of these approaches are not easy to apply for reasons such as high amount of skill, data and time requirement. Towards bridging this gap, this study proposes a sustainability assessment approach.

The assessment approach proposed in the paper uses a predefined list of potential sustainable manufacturing practices (SMPs) covering the primary and support activity domains of a manufacturing firm's value chain. It proposes a method to assess the extent of implementation of SMPs and identify associated drivers and barriers for each SMP area/category along the value chain of a firm as well as at overall firm level. A case study from textile industry is presented to demonstrate the utility of this approach.

The sustainability assessment approach adopted in this study uses less time and skills as well as ensures comprehensive coverage of SMPs. It provided valuable information to the management of the case company on how sustainable their practices are and why?

The study highlights the importance of sustainability assessment at SMP area/category level as well as explores practice area/category specific drivers and barriers. It provides a useful approach for a quick assessment of the current state of sustainability in manufacturing firms.

The objective of the present research was to carry out a scientific map about life cycle assessment (LCA) and triple bottom line (TBL) at slaughterhouse areas, looking for Cleaner Production practices aiming at recognizing strategic themes for maintaining the sustainability of productive systems, according to the development of sustainable practices and production evolution in slaughterhouse areas.

The literature analysis was based on general approach, with steps adapted of study phases and activities of preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analyses (PRISMA) recommendation guide to do systematic literature review. Activities were subdivided to discuss the results in two kinds of analysis: quantitative and qualitative.

The main findings of our study reinforce the LCA importance in slaughterhouses to promote Cleaner Production, so that the main measures suggested and/or adopted by different authors include the substitution of raw materials by feeding, with the adoption of grains, protein supplements with less environmental impact in the composition of the feed and changes in the processes seeking for better energy efficiency and optimization of water consumption in meat processing.

There is another action of sustainability considering LCA and Cleaner Production practices in the industrial meat area that should also be considered. These actions are restricted to documents of business circulation, with limited access since they involve issues regarding innovations in economic and technological aspects of slaughterhouses, as well as industrial confidentiality. Furthermore, in patent bases it is possible to advance the studies looking for how the digital transformation has been carried out in this industrial branch, since the 4.0 transformation industry tends to use clean technologies.

There are LCA models with a systemic approach to measure the level of sustainability of a process, comprising analysis of impacts related to different areas: environmental, social and economic although in terms of the meat production chain, the impact analysis focuses mainly on the environmental area. So, future works should be developed in meat production chain to assess social and economic impacts, i.e. a sustainable LCA addressing the three areas to consolidate models and standardize metrics with a scientific basis.

The purpose of this paper is to inform decision makers about the data and information generated by commonly‐used, holistic environmental assessment approaches.

Descriptions of eight types of lifecycle‐based methods are provided: Carbon/Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Management, Ecological Footprint, Energy Assessments, Fuel Cycle Analysis, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Risk Management (LCRM), Material Flow Analysis (MFA), and Sustainability Indicators. Example assessments of bio‐based products are provided because of the current environmental and socio‐economic relevance of bio‐feedstocks.

Assessment methods that focus on single impact indicators, such as air emissions (Carbon Management and Fuel Cycle Analysis) and energy, typically show biofuels in a favorable light compared to conventional gasoline (petrol). Ecological Footprint addresses land use implications; LCRM addresses possible impacts to human and ecological health due to chemical contaminant exposure; and MFA identifies areas to improve resource management and decrease the use of natural resources. LCA and Sustainability Indicators cover a wider range of environmental factors.

This study of environmental assessment approaches that incorporate a life cycle perspective revealed the importance of integrating the data and information generated by these disparate evaluations to make quality decisions. Developing such synergies is identified as a research need.

The growing need by decision makers to look broadly at engineered systems led to a proliferation of approaches that are holistic and wide reaching. This paper provides clear descriptions of them to help dispel the potential confusion regarding what the various approaches cover when applying a lifecycle perspective.

The paper bridges the gap between science and the decision‐making process by describing what the various lifecycle‐based methods for environmental assessment can and cannot do. Moreover, it provides evidence that no single tool encompasses all possible environmental impacts.

System dynamics has several applications in the built environment, and few studies indicate that it has potential in evaluating sustainability. Sustainability in the built environment involves numerous entities and multiple trade-offs. Hence, a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method is ideal for promoting sustainability-based decision-making in the built environment. Therefore, this study integrates system dynamics with an MCDM method to enable the sustainability assessment by capturing the time-induced dynamic changes affecting long time sustainability performance of buildings.

Conventional sustainability assessment tools in the built environment lack a comprehensive evaluation that balances the needs of the society, economy and environment. This study develops a system dynamics-based framework to enable sustainability-conscious decision-making and policy analysis in the built environment.

Various material, technology and water-related policies specific to the buildings are investigated for a case study building. It is found that the effect of penetration of renewable energy technology to the tune of 80% and above in the energy mix is a much superior policy in sustainability improvement in comparison to material and water-related policies. The study also demonstrates the effect of weights assigned for the different indicators on sustainability-based decisions.

The study provides a methodological framework for a sustainability-based decision support system for the built environment that enables dynamic performance evaluation by coupling system dynamics with the MCDM. This coupling further strengthens system dynamics as a decision-making and policy analysis for sustainability evaluation in the built environment.

This study aimed to identify research trends and topics in sustainability assessment in the food sector within the scope of economics, business and management research.

The authors conducted a bibliometric analysis by applying a rigid and systematic research protocol, employing bibliometric techniques and a keyword co-occurrence network. Further, the Visualization of Similarities viewer software was used to analyse publications between 1994 and 2021.

The knowledge trends regarding “sustainability assessment” in the research area of business economics demonstrated a notable evolution of the topics analysed, ranging from indicators and policy analyses in agriculture and fishery sectors, to the topic of sustainability life cycle assessment (LCA) and management systems. In business and management research areas, the main theoretical frameworks used for sustainability assessment in the food sector included the triple-bottom line (TBL) and the LCA, and the main research topics were food chain logistics, bio-based products, retailers, consumption patterns and crop-based biodiesel options.

This study employed only the WoS database and future studies could incorporate other scientific databases. Regarding future research, more emphasis could be laid on food retailers given their prevalence as demonstrated by the study and past research.

The findings can help all participants in the food global value chain to make better decisions to guide their sustainability efforts and assessment. Moreover, this research reveals that companies need to be actively engaged with their stakeholders and pay special attention to consumer patterns and perceptions.

The bibliometric research focus on business and management research areas using the Web of Sciences categories, starting from the research area of business economics to the analysis of the food sector's sustainability assessment.

This study aimed to provide a framework that includes the principles of sustainable construction to evaluate their application in the construction of government building projects in various environmental, economic, and social aspects distributed over the project phases throughout its life cycle.

Qualitative methods from literature review and analysis of sustainability assessment tools were used to design the framework. The designed framework included six main categories, comprising 19 indicators that include sustainable building principles to assess application levels in government construction projects. It was used to evaluate applying sustainability practices in Jordanian government construction projects. 133 questionnaires were distributed to a convenience sample of three government institutions concerned with the design, implementation, and management of government buildings in Jordan.

After collecting the quantitative data, the results showed that there is an application of six sustainability principles during the initial planning, analysis, and design stages of Jordanian government construction projects. The results focused on the application levels in social sustainability principles versus environmental and economical, especially in the operating stages during the project life cycle.

This study contributes by providing a tool to evaluate the sustainability of government construction projects and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of these types of buildings in both the short and long term by making them more sustainable. Subsequently, recommendations are made on reorienting government construction projects toward a sustainable building approach.

Over the last eight years, the Middle East has experienced a series of high profile conflicts which have resulted in over 5.6 million Syrians forced to migrate to neighbouring countries within the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region or to Europe. That have exerted huge pressure on hosting countries trying to accommodate refugees in decent shelters and in quick manner. Temporary shelters normally carry a high environmental burden due to their short lifespan, and the majority are fabricated from industrialised materials. This study assesses the carbon impact for a minus carbon experimental refugee house in Sweden using life cycle assessment (LCA) as tool. SimaPro and GaBi software were used for the calculations and the ReCiPe midpoint method for impact assessment. The results show that using local plant-based materials such as straw, reeds and wood, together with clay dug from close to the construction site, can drastically reduce the carbon footprint of temporary shelters and even attain a negative carbon impact of 226.2 kg CO₂ eq/m². Based on the results of the uncertainty importance analysis, the overall global warming potential impact without and with sequestration potential are mostly sensitive to the variability of the GWP impact of wood fibre insulation.

The methodology is designed to calculate the GWP impact of the refugee house over its entire life cycle (production, operation and maintenance and end of life). Then, the sensitivity analysis was performed to explore the impact of input uncertainties (selection of material from the database and the method) on the total GWP impact of the refugee house with and without sequestration. The ISO standards (International Standard 14040 2006; International Standard 14044 2006) divide the LCA framework into four steps of Goal and scope, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation.

This study has shown an example for proof of concept for a low impact refugee house prototype using straw, reeds, clay, lime and wood as the principle raw materials for building construction. Using natural materials, especially plant-based fibres, as the main construction materials, proved to achieve a minus carbon outcome over the life cycle of the building. The GWP of the shelter house without and with sequestration are found to be 254.7 kg CO₂ eq/m² and -226.2 kg CO₂ eq/m², respectively.

As there are still very few studies concerned with the environmental impact of temporary refugee housing, this study contributes to the pool of knowledge by introducing a complete LCA calculation for a physical house prototype as a proof of concept on how using low impact raw materials for construction combined with passive solutions for heating and cooling can reach a minus carbon outcome. The GWP of the shelter house without and with sequestration are found to be 254.7 kg CO₂ eq/m² and -226.2 kg CO₂ eq/m².

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that define the management practices of a center of electrical and electronic waste and of reuse of equipment aiming to contribute to the sustainable development. It is known that the effort to achieve the green IT, including recycling and sustainable disposability of equipment does not follow the same pace as industry production.

The paper draws on the existing sustainable development, on the computer equipment and its composition and in the disposal of electronic waste as literature of orientation. The center for disposal and reuse of the information technology waste from a Brazilian university was approached by the methodology of qualitative case study.

The research revealed some findings related to the concepts of integrated waste management, product life cycle assessment, stakeholder involvement and inventory and information system of electrical and electronic equipment.

The research involved the analysis of documents and the website of the center and the technician responsible for the center was interviewed. The results can contribute as a benchmark for other universities and organizations who intend to create or implement a center for collection and recycling of computer equipment.

The paper shows the importance of communication and relationship between the center and the units of the university and with the stakeholders related to the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) management.

The study has its focus on a more comprehensive WEEE approach that shows insights that can be used or adapted to any university or even companies.