(1) Life Cycle Assessment (abbr. LCA), which is the assessment of the environmental impacts of products or projects over their whole life cycle, enabling regulation of what is reasonable in regard to resource use and pollution. An LCA examines the environmental impact of a product life cycle, and in the context of life cycle analysis highlights resource use, energy use, emissions to air, water and soil, and potential environmental harm from the beginning to the end of the life cycle, including waste management. For example, an LCA can be conducted to apply environmental impacts to different types of packaging. These environmental impacts can inform legislation that can drive the adoption of sustainable packaging options. LCA can also be used to show the environmental footprint of bioplastics used in comparison to conventional plastics, and the results can help inform decision-makers on the potential positives and drawbacks of proposing bioplastics as a more sustainable alternative.

(2) Life Cycle Costing (LCC) assesses the economic costs associated with a product’s life cycle. This includes the costs of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, use, maintenance and waste management. LCC helps identify cost savings opportunities and assess the financial feasibility of different options.2

(3) Social Life Cycle Assessment (abbr. S-LCA) analyses the social and societal effects of a product’s life cycle. It encompasses the analysis of working circumstances, workers’ rights, community effects, social risks, and impacts throughout the entire supply chain. These three pieces are then amalgamated in the LCSA for a comprehensive understanding of sustainability.3 The LCSA allows for:

Conducting a literature review, and analysing academic journals, books, and other publications that are related to sustainability and law is necessary to create a foundation of knowledge and identify a research gap. It is important to know the key concepts, theories, and frameworks regarding sustainability and law, know the more current trends, development and contribution to the field and research gap, know what situations and challenges have occurred in the field (past and present), have an understanding of new perspectives, concepts, and ideas to the relevant topic. Google Scholar and the Web of Science (abbr. WoS) database can be helpful in locating bibliographic information for academic articles related to sustainability and law. WoS also has the ability to assess citation relationships between authors and topics, thereby identifying the most impactful authors and topics in the field of research. The following resources can be highlighted here:

It is important to note that literature reviews, WoS and Bibliometrix are only tools and are not sufficient on their own to conduct research on sustainability and law. Bibliometric indicators do not necessarily represent research quality, nor should they be used exclusively to evaluate individual researchers or institutions. These indicators should be used in conjunction with other methods of research, like interviews, focus groups or case studies.