Integrated Sustainability Assessment of Brownfield Regeneration: The Vieux-Charmont Park Case (France)

Brownfield redevelopment increasingly requires sustainability-oriented frameworks integrating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), Net Present Value (NPV), Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA), and Social Return on Investment (SROI) to evaluate conventional remediation benchmarks and nature-based solutions (NBS) for the restoration of the Vieux-Charmont brownfield (France) into a public ecological park. Eight remediation scenarios were assessed, including combinations of excavation, soil treatment, landfill disposal, soil reuse, and phyto-management. The results demonstrated substantial differences among restoration pathways. The conventional landfill-oriented benchmark generated the highest environmental burdens, whereas the best-performing phyto-management scenario achieved the lowest impacts, reducing climate change and land use impacts by 91.6% and 75.6%, respectively. Scenarios integrating reduced excavation intensity and treated soil reuse consistently improved environmental performance and long-term economic viability. The best-performing phyto-management configuration also achieved the highest NPV after 20 years (1.38 million Euros, 2026). The social assessment results indicated improved socio-economic performance for phyto-management systems within the adopted S-LCA and SROI framework. Overall, the findings demonstrated that remediation strategies should not be evaluated solely according to contaminant removal efficiency or direct operational costs. Instead, integrated sustainability frameworks combining environmental, economic, and social dimensions provide a more robust basis for supporting sustainable brownfield restoration and circular land management strategies.