Review of the Quantitative Analysis Methods for Social Life Cycle Assessment in Construction

The life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) of construction activities has become a subject of considerable interest globally. However, researchers are mainly devoted to analyzing economic and environmental impact assessment of buildings, and there is a lack of a review of the studies on social impact assessment. Therefore, this study aims to review the quantitative methods for social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) in construction through the bibliometric method. Most of the studies on social impact analysis have adopted qualitative and quantitative methods and this study mainly focuses on the studies that used quantitative analysis methods for social life cycle assessment owing to the space limitation. This study found that the research interest in the life cycle sustainability assessment is gradually rising, primarily focusing on case studies, method comparisons, and new frameworks. However, because social impact assessment has significant limitations in the quantification of inventory, the choice of indicators, and the method of impact assessment, this study proposes that the development of social impact factors in the construction field requires to make more extraordinary efforts in the development of new methods, new software, new technologies, decision-supporting tools, and databases.