Life cycle sustainability assessment of sustainable social housing refurbishment: A systematic review

The European Union has initiated building renovation strategies to address Europe's ageing building stock and reach climate neutrality. However, social housing refurbishment faces distinct challenges: balancing affordability with energy efficiency improvements, avoiding green gentrification, and inclusive stakeholder participation. Current research remains fragmented, focusing mostly on environmental-economic dimensions while omitting social aspects. This paper aims to systematically review life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) methodologies (i.e., Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA)) applied in social housing refurbishments, and to identify research trends, gaps, and future directions. A three-phase systematic review methodology was employed, using (i) literature identification, (ii) quantitative bibliometric analysis, and (iii) qualitative content analysis. A review of 120 peer-reviewed documents (2015-2025) was conducted, classifying them by building interventions, sustainability dimensions, and application of sustainability assessment methodologies, LCA, LCC, and S-LCA. Results reveal global research imbalances. LCA dominates, followed by LCC, while S-LCA remains limited. S-LCA lacks methodological maturity, limiting its application and cross-study comparability. Achieving equitable and sustainable social housing requires developing standardised S-LCA protocols (analogous to LCA and LCC) for global accessibility, advancing social sustainability metrics, and establishing inclusive stakeholder engagements throughout the lifecycle for overall sustainability.