Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment as a driver for Sustainable Business Models: Methods, Tools, and Applications

Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) provides a practical tool to support companies in developing and evaluating sustainable business models. As businesses face increasing pressure to reduce environmental impacts, ensure social responsibility, and remain economically viable, decision-makers require holistic tools that capture sustainability performance across complex value chains. Traditional assessment approaches often focus on isolated indicators, which can obscure trade-offs and lead to suboptimal or unintended outcomes. LCSA addresses this challenge by integrating environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) into a unified decision-support framework. The goal of this Research Topic is to advance the understanding and practical application of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) as a decision-support framework for sustainable business models. It aims to bring together interdisciplinary research that bridges methodological developments with real-world business and policy challenges. Specifically, the Research Topic seeks to (i) explore innovative LCSA methods and frameworks tailored to business model design, evaluation, and transformation; (ii) showcase digital tools, data-driven approaches, and decision-support systems that enhance the usability of LCSA in organizational contexts; and (iii) present empirical case studies demonstrating how LCSA can inform strategic decision-making across industries and value chains. By fostering dialogue between researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, this Research Topic intends to strengthen the role of life cycle–based evidence in supporting sustainability-oriented business innovation. Ultimately, it aims to contribute actionable insights that support the transition toward more resilient, transparent, and sustainable economic systems.Recognising that merely assessing impact is insufficient today, we need to design businesses that are sustainable from the concept phase. Given the purpose of this Research Topic to explore LCA applications and the development of sustainable business models, to demonstrate how life-cycle thinking tools can steer strategic decisions in industry, public policy, and green finance, we invite contributors to:• Lift the LCA from the strictly evaluative domain (post-factum analysis) into a decision-making and innovation tool;• Highlight how environmental, social and economic indicators can be integrated into business models;• Provide case studies, methodological frameworks and quantitative models that can be replicated in real-world industrial settings;• Support the transition from the linear to the circular economy, based on sound scientific evidence.Original research, case studies, or mini-reviews are encouraged for submission to ensure high international visibility, real impact, a focus on a highly current theme aligned with the Green Deal, the EU taxonomy, and the climate-neutrality objectives, and integration into Horizon Europe projects. This issue also presents an opportunity to publish interdisciplinary articles that integrate environmental engineering with economics, management, and decision analysis.The main themes, directly correlated with the development of sustainable business models based on LCA, may include: 1. LCA for business model design (eco-design, raw material selection, supply chain optimisation, correlating LCA results with the Business Model Canvas, circular patterns, Product-Service Systems (PSS)).2. LCA, LCC and Social LCA for strategic decisions - Life Cycle Costing (LCC) integration with Social LCA (S-LCA) and ESG, - development of multi-criteria decision models for green investments, clean technologies, and sustainable procurement policies.3. Circular business models evaluated by LCA (remanufacturing, reuse, recycling, closed-loop supply chains, real benefit analysis vs. greenwashing, LCA as a circularity validation tool, not just marketing).4. LCA applied in key sectors (renewable energy and storage, water and wastewater, chemical industry and advanced materials, mechanics and mechatronics, agriculture and bioeconomy, etc.).5. Digitalisation, AI and LCA for sustainable business models (Dynamic LCA, digital twins for life cycle assessment, automation of environmental data collection, the link between Industry 4.0 and Sustainability 4.0).6. LCA-based public policies and regulations (eco-labelling, financial support schemes, implications for companies' competitiveness). Topic editors: Wei Wang, Brindusa Sluser, George Tsalidis Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/77216/life-cycle-sustainability-assessment-as-a-driver-for-sustainable-business-models-methods-tools-and-applications