This British Standard provides a framework for the assessment of social, economic and environmental issues in the sustainable use of materials. The framework can be applied to all parts of the supply chain and is intended to support decision making about the sustainable use of any type of material. This standard covers consideration of: the social, economic and environmental aspects throughout the material lifecycle, covering: sourcing of materials; conversion of materials into products; performance of a product over its functional lifetime; end of life of the product and either the reuse, remanufacture, recycling or disposal of the product; and end of life of a material and either the reuse, remanufacture, recycling or disposal of the material, with particular emphasis on social performance in the use phase of a product life and environmental performance over the full life cycle, and taking into consideration the longer term and local economic issues; how to balance these aspects against stakeholder priorities in terms of sustainable development; guidance on the use of decision support tools to assess the relative sustainability of material choice; and the importance of data quality when carrying out a sustainability assessment. NOTE This standard assumes that the project brief and material design options have been agreed prior to the use of the assessment framework. The standard does not provide: comparisons between specific materials; advice on the properties of materials and products; or recommendations on specific software tools to support the evaluation and comparisons of social, economic and environmental aspects.