From buildings to district: A systematic review of life cycle assessment approaches for energy system planning and optimization

Wang, Yiting, Zhang, Chengyu, Rezgui, Yacine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5711-8400, Ghoroghi, Ali, Luo, Zhiwen, Li, Yuanjie and Zhao, Tianyi 2026. From buildings to district: A systematic review of life cycle assessment approaches for energy system planning and optimization. Building and Environment , 114441. 10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114441

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Abstract

In the context of the global energy transition and the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7), distributed energy systems, particularly building and district energy systems, are receiving increasing attention. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), as a systematic tool for evaluating environmental impacts, has been widely applied to individual energy technologies and buildings. However, existing research still lacks comprehensive, system-level assessments of district energy systems. To address this gap, this study conducts a systematic literature review to identify the state of the art in scaling up LCA from individual buildings to district energy systems, highlight current limitations, and suggest future research directions. Following the PRISMA guidelines, this paper searches and screens relevant literature, with a focus on how LCA is applied in the assessment and optimization of energy systems and how its extended dimensions are factored-in. The review reveals significant gaps in the application of LCA to building and district energy systems assessment and optimization, including neglect of end-of-life (EoL) processes, limited data reliability, incomplete environmental impact coverage, insufficient consideration of uncertainty, limited adoption of advanced optimization algorithms, and a lack of integrated capacity-operation planning. Furthermore, research on extended LCA dimensions remains limited. Based on these findings, a conceptual roadmap for multi-dimensional LCA of district energy systems is proposed. This roadmap extends conventional LCA by integrating sustainability principles, spatiotemporal dynamics, and circularity, enabling comprehensive and dynamic evaluation and optimization of district energy systems across their entire life cycle.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Engineering
Publisher:	Elsevier BV
ISSN:	0360-1323
Date of Acceptance:	1 March 2026
Last Modified:	09 Mar 2026 11:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/185586

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