Implementing Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment in Building and Energy Retrofit Design—An Investigation into Challenges and Opportunities

The built environment is known as a major contributor to both sustainability problems and solutions. Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) which is a promising approach to evaluating the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of building performance, is progressively drawing the building researcher’s attention. This chapter aims to review the roots and evolution of building sustainability assessment and discusses the associated challenges of LCSA in building and energy retrofit design. Through a critical review, different assumptions and limitations will be reviewed, and the main challenges of integrating LCSA into building energy retrofit design will be classified and discussed. In the end, the new research lines such as developing integrated LCSA models, application of optimization methods, and Building Information Modeling (BIM) in LCSA will be discussed.