Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment (AESA) involves comparing the environmental burdens of individual systems to planetary boundaries and other environmental carrying capacities to understand what it takes for these systems to be environmentally sustainable. AESA has attracted great interest, but the lack of a harmonized and comprehensive technical guidance document has inhibited its practical application. Here, we present the first practical guidelines for how to apply AESA to systems at different scales. Based on existing academic studies, and feedback to a beta version of this document, the AESA guidelines are structured in four main phases (plan assessment, estimate environmental burdens, allocate carrying capacities and interpret results), comprising nine steps and twelve sub-steps. The presentation of each (sub-)step is supported by three cross-cutting case studies covering respectively a sample of residential buildings in Denmark, a major Indian cement company and the total EU consumption. The AESA guidelines build on existing environmental accounting guidelines and standards, e.g. the International Life Cycle Data Handbook for product-level life cycle assessment and the company-level Greenhouse Gas Protocol and highlights where AESA requires a divergence from the existing practice. The guidelines are not prescriptive around the unique carrying capacity allocation step, and instead offers a broad overview of existing methods, choices and considerations, forming a basis for more specific future guidelines.

BJORN Anders;  PAULILLO Andrea;  SANYE MENGUAL Esther;  DE LAURENTIIS Valeria;  VEA Eldbjorg;  HAUSCHILD Michael Zwicky;  SALA Serenella; 

2026-09-29

Publications Office of the European Union

JRC148054

978-92-68-43115-3 (online),    978-92-68-43116-0 (print),   

1831-9424 (online),    1018-5593 (print),   

EUR 40840,    EUR 40840 (print),    OP KJ-01-26-373-EN-N (online),    OP KJ-01-26-373-EN-C (print),   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC148054,   

10.2760/3990708 (online),    10.2760/2945241 (print),