Literature Review of Current Sustainability Assessment Frameworks and Approaches for Organizations

TL;DR

This review analyzes current sustainability assessment frameworks across industries, highlighting methods, strengths, limitations, and future research directions to improve organizational sustainability practices.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of SAF design approaches, evaluates various methods, and identifies gaps and opportunities for advancing sustainability assessment.

Findings

Fuzzy-AHP is a robust method for SI importance assessment.

Dynamic indices are essential but often limited by static methods.

Hybrid and multi-criteria decision-making models are recommended for future research.

Abstract

This systematic literature review explores sustainability assessment frameworks (SAFs) across diverse industries. The review focuses on SAF design approaches including the methods used for Sustainability Indicator (SI) selection, relative importance assessment, and interdependency analysis. Various methods, including literature reviews, stakeholder interviews, questionnaires, Pareto analysis, SMART approach, and adherence to sustainability standards, contribute to the complex SI selection process. Fuzzy-AHP stands out as a robust technique for assessing relative SI importance. While dynamic sustainability and performance indices are essential, methods like DEMATEL, VIKOR, correlation analysis, and causal models for interdependency assessment exhibit static limitations. The review presents strengths and limitations of SAFs, addressing gaps in design approaches and contributing to a comprehensive understanding. The insights of this review aim to benefit policymakers, administrators, leaders, and researchers, fostering sustainability practices. Future research recommendations include exploring multi-criteria decision-making models and hybrid approaches, extending sustainability evaluation across organizational levels and supply chains. Emphasizing adaptability to industry specifics and dynamic global adjustments is proposed for holistic sustainability practices, further enhancing organizational sustainability.