Sustainability Assessment of Additive Manufacturing

With the implementation of United Nations’ Agenda 2030, sustainability assessment has received increasing attention from around the world. In this context, sustainability assessments of industry are becoming increasingly important, as they have a significant impact on the environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainability (the triple bottom line). At the same time, companies and researchers recognized the potential of additive manufacturing (AM) in terms of contributing to sustainability development. This systematic literature review explores latest research and existing methods on sustainability of Additive Manufacturing (AM), known for an emerging technology in manufacturing sector. And to review latest methods that can potentially be applied by industries to support the assessment of their environmental sustainability especially the feasibility of applying it to additive manufacturing assessment in order to identify key sustainability challenges and opportunities and provides further guidance for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. The study highlights the necessity to incorporate absolute environmental sustainability requirements into target-driven sustainability assessments for additive manufacturing in the future.