Assessing the availability of life cycle assessments in Austria

Abstract

This study aims to present the availability of studies that are related to life cycle assessments (LCA) in Austria since 2000. This study also includes a review of available water and carbon footprint studies along with an analysis of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) database pertaining to Austria. The review seeks to explore potential research gaps and to identify needs for similar studies in the country while quantifying the number of available studies that are available to the general public or as background information in other LCA studies. Online searches using Google, Google Scholar, Scopus, and ScienceDirect were conducted using various keywords to find LCA studies. Keywords included: life cycle assessment, LCA, and Austria, as well as water and carbon footprinting. Results were limited to English language studies. A total of 15 studies that pertain directly to LCAs in Austria were found. In addition, four reports for water footprinting and six reports for carbon footprinting were found, and 77 GRI reports. The majority of the LCA studies were only accessible by way of restricted journals. The majority of the studies focused on the energy and manufacturing sectors. This was expected, due to exports that make up a large portion of the Austrian economy. Nevertheless, LCA research appeared to be driven by academic sources, rather than industry. Therefore, most of the studies were limited to paid subscriptions and thus were not easily accessible by the general public.