Eco-assessment software: A quantitative review involving papers and patents

This paper presents a critical review of a representative pool of 169 scientific papers and 175 patents, from the last twenty years, proposing new eco-assessment software, in order to draw an overview about their main features and functionalities. Each document was analysed in relation to its source (academia or industry), the application field of the assessed product, the type of use, the application phase, the data entry modality, the assessed product life cycle phases and items, the exploited methods and tools for the eco-assessment, the implemented eco-improvement strategies. Then, based on these collected data, all the documents were classified on multiple levels in accordance with the rigorous ontology of the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. While the detailed analysis of the results allowed us to identify their distributions at to date and their time trends. The obtained results highlighted the trend towards the increase in the specificity of the software with respect to the application field, the focus on the quantification of the environmental impacts deriving from the use of the product and the proposed eco-improvement strategies mainly pointing in this direction. The provided outcomes may be used by researchers and professionals for classifying the many available software and identifying the most suitable ones in relation to their specific exigences. •Literature survey of 169 papers and 175 patents about eco-assessment software.•Double investigation perspective about academic and industrial developments.•Tendency to increase the specificity of software according to the application field.•Main and increasing focus on measuring the environmental impacts of product use.•Most eco-improvement strategies are aimed at reducing product’s energy consumption.