With the intensification of environmental crises such as global climate risk, resource depletion and ecological deterioration, sustainable development has become the focus of attention of all countries. Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), as a comprehensive method to assess the environmental, social and economic impacts of products throughout their life cycle, has been widely used in industry in recent years. This paper reviewed the research progress of LCSA method and summarized the basic framework of LCSA. Moreover, the differences of LCSA methodology in the aspects of sustainability dimensions, evaluation methods of key indicators were compared. At last, the applications of LCSA in materials industry were discussed. From the perspective of methodological development, the current LCSA methodology system mainly follows ‘the triple bottom line model’, focusing on the three dimensions of environment, economy and society. In recent years, some studies have begun to explore the incorporation of resource circularity, criticality and other indicators in the assessment scope to reflect the sustainability of products more comprehensively. From the perspective of application fields, the applications of LCSA method were mainly concentrated in the fields of building materials, biomass fuels and waste management. In the future, LCSA method will develop in the direction of more refinement and comprehensiveness, expand more application in materials and their downstream end-products.