title: Life cycle tools combined with multi-criteria and participatory methods for agricultural sustainability: Insights from a systematic and critical review.
abstract: Life cycle (LC) methodologies have attracted a great interest in agricultural sustainability assessments, even if, at the same time, they have sometimes been criticized for making unrealistic assumptions and subjective choices. To cope with these weaknesses, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and/or participatory methods can be used to balance and integrate different sustainability dimensions. The purpose of this study is to highlight how life cycle approaches were combined with MCDA and participatory methods to address agricultural sustainability in the published scientific literature. A systematic and critical review was developed, highlighting the following features: which multi-criterial and/or participatory methods have been associated with LC tools; how they have been integrated or complemented (methodological relationships); the intensity of the involvement of stakeholders (degree of participation); and which synergies have been achieved by combining the methods. The main typology of integration was represented by multi-criterial frameworks integrating LC evaluations. LC tools can provide MCDA studies with local and global information on how to reduce negative impacts and avoid burden shifts, while MCDA methods can help LC practitioners deal with subjective assumptions in an objective way, to take into consideration actors' values and to overcome trade-offs among the different dimensions of sustainability. Considerations concerning the further development of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) have been identified as well.
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy. Electronic address: anna.deluca@unirc.it.
authors.forename: Anna Irene
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: De Luca
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy.
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Iofrida
authors.affiliation: European Forest Institute, Yliopistokatu 6, 80100 Joensuu, Finland.
authors.forename: Pekka
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Leskinen
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy.
authors.forename: Teodora
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Stillitano
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy.
authors.forename: Giacomo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Falcone
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy.
authors.forename: Alfio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Strano
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gulisano
keywords: Agricultural sustainability; Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); Life Cycle Costing (LCC); Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA); Participative techniques; Social LCA