A Systematic Analysis of Life Cycle Assessment Studies during 2000-2022

Document Type : Review Article

Authors

1 Department of Civil Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely recognized tool for environmental assessment, which has experienced a strong development both in methodology and applications. This paper aimed to perform a bibliometric analysis of LCA research during 2000-2022, considering publication types, publication trends, subject categories, journals, institutions, countries, and author keywords. Social Network Analysis was applied to recognize mapping trends, status, and hot spots in LCA research and to discover co-authorship relations and international collaborations among countries worldwide. The results of this study showed that the number of LCA publications has remarkably increased by more than tenfold over the study period. The United States, with 5885 publications (17.3%), was the most productive country in terms of the number of publications. The keywords “sustainability,” “environmental impact,” “carbon footprint,” “circular economy,” “recycling,” and “climate change” were the most occurred keywords in the literature. The keyword “sustainability,” growing from 221 in 2000-2011 to 2013 in 2011-2022, was the most trending keyword. The keywords "water footprint," "biogas," and "GHG emissions" exhibited the highest increase in frequency, with growth rates of 18.5, 11.2, and 7.1 times, respectively. The outcomes of this study showed the cumulative progression of the literature, thereby establishing a framework for future works in LCA research.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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