Although plenty of research has been carried out to develop a multitude of sustainability assessment methods, few guidelines and criteria have been established to help practitioners and researchers find the most appropriate method for a specific case. Studies have shown the importance of integrating sustainability assessments when conducting research and development activities, but have not provided direct links to available sustainability assessment methods. To address the so-called “eco-design paradox”, this paper describes a systematic classification system for the available sustainability assessment methods. To support the early integration of sustainability assessments in research and development, we inductively derived the concept of sustainability assessment levels from the well-known concept of technology readiness level. In total, 33 sustainability assessment methods were considered. We performed an expert-based correspondence analysis based on the availability of information to perform these methods and the demand for specific information at respective technology readiness level. Thereafter, a cluster analysis was performed, creating four distinct clusters which were finally interpreted as sustainability assessment levels. The provided concept supports interdisciplinary research projects in that it provides an overview of and guideline for possible sustainability assessment methods that match the respective technology readiness level. This enables researchers to integrate sustainability assessment into respective research and development projects and further modify and develop the theoretically synthetized concept based on empirical case studies.

尽管已进行了大量研究以开发多种可持续性评估方法，但建立指导原则和标准的方法很少，以帮助从业人员和研究人员为特定案例找到最合适的方法。研究表明进行研发活动时整合可持续性评估的重要性，但未提供与可用的可持续性评估方法的直接联系。为了解决所谓的“生态设计悖论”，本文描述了一种针对现有可持续性评估方法的系统分类系统。为了支持可持续性评估在研发中的早期整合，我们从众所周知的技术准备水平概念中归纳出可持续性评估水平的概念。总共，考虑了33种可持续性评估方法。我们基于信息的可用性来执行基于专家的对应分析，以执行这些方法以及在各个技术准备水平下对特定信息的需求。此后，进行了聚类分析，创建了四个不同的聚类，这些聚类最终被解释为可持续性评估水平。所提供的概念为跨学科研究项目提供了支持，因为它概述了与相应技术准备水平相匹配的可能的可持续性评估方法并提供了指导。这使研究人员能够将可持续性评估整合到各自的研发项目中，并根据经验案例研究进一步修改和发展理论上综合的概念。