Sustainability decision making is a complex task for policy makers, considering the possible unseen consequences it may entail. With a broader scope covering environmental, economic, and social aspects, Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is a promising holistic method to deal with that complexity. However, to date, this method is limited to the hotspot analysis of a product, service, or system, and hence only assesses direct impacts and overlooks the indirect ones (or consequences). This critical literature review aims to explore the challenges and the research gaps related to the integration of three methods in LCSA representing three pillars of sustainability: (Environmental) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). The challenges and the research gaps that appear when pairing two of these tools with each other are identified and discussed, i.e., the temporal issues, different perspectives, the indirect consequences, etc. Although this study does not aim to remove the shadows in LCSA methods, critical research gaps are identified in order to be addressed in future works. More case studies are also recommended for a deeper understanding of methodological trade-offs that might happen, especially when dealing with the consequential perspective.

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Prodealers are building materials suppliers whose client base comes mostly from the homebuilding industry. Because they represent an important channel for wood products, a 2007 survey of US prodealers examined (1) lumber attributes demanded, (2) products and suppliers requirements, (3) trends in substitution between countries supplying lumber to the United States, and (4) trends toward prefabrication of structural components. Forty-six prodealers were surveyed; most answered for multiple stores. On average, respondents purchased 60 million board feet of lumber in 2007, and their overall consumption was estimated at 2.76 billion board feet. By far, the most common grade in the prodealer segment is dimension lumber (No. 2 and Better), and the most common type is the spruce-pine-fir species group (SPF). Within the sample, 5 percent of US lumber imports came from offshore. Canada supplied 51 percent of the lumber purchased by respondents, and the United States supplied 47 percent. Wane as well as warp and twist were consistently identified as the most challenging lumber attributes for prodealers. Product quality was identified as a primary reason for changing lumber suppliers. In characterizing properties of the dimension lumber imported from Europe to the United States, it was found that European lumber stands out mostly for visual appearance and low wane. For customer support and timely deliveries, respondents tended to favor US mills. The study suggests that customers are not fully satisfied with lumber, especially with regard to wane and straightness, and that lumber quality issues may be more important today than in the past.