Assessment of system sustainability: a critical review of the combined application of system dynamics and life cycle assessment

Abstract

Life cycle assessment is widely applied for quantifying the environmental impacts of products and processes. However, it has limitations due to the static data inputs and steady-state assumptions, which hinder predicting future impact changes and overlook the system’s dynamics issues. System dynamics is often applied to simulate the causal relationships of internal and external factors in the complex systems, enabling the exploration of system nonlinearities and feedback mechanisms on system change in the future. Therefore, life cycle assessment and system dynamics can be integrated to augment the current deficiencies of life cycle assessment research, resulting in more accurately assessed outcomes. This paper reviews the combination of system dynamics and life cycle assessment methods and analyzes the different application cases. The findings reveal that incorporating system dynamics can enhance the timescale and system interaction mechanisms of life cycle assessment, while life cycle assessment expands the scope of system dynamics modeling, thus leveraging the complementary advantages of both approaches. There is no unified framework for the system dynamics and life cycle assessment model, which is often influenced by simplification and assumption of models. Moreover, there are still deficiencies in the indicator system selection and assessment model construction. Future research should focus on incorporating dynamic impact factors to assess all environmental, economic, and social sustainability aspects to enrich the research system by considering temporal and spatial changes. These advancements will support the further development of the system dynamics and life cycle assessment model, ensuring more comprehensive and accurate assessments of the system sustainability.

Keywords

Environmental impacts / Dynamic analysis / System parameter relationship / Sustainability assessment

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Funding

Natural Science Foundation of China(71974116)

Shandong Social Science Planning Research Project(21BKRJ02)