## 5 Conclusions  
* The review has identified a set of critical limitations and opportunities in current LCC practices that define a clear research agenda.
* Intrinsic Limitations of LCC Methodologies: Life-cycle cost (LCC) methodologies present inherent limitations in real estate decision-making, primarily due to the challenges associated with long-term forecasting, such as unpredictable cash flows, fluctuating interest rates, and volatile energy prices.
* Lack of Standardization: Discrepancies in discount rates, conversion factors, and system boundaries across studies and tools highlight the absence of standardized frameworks, particularly for integrating environmental and social externalities.
* Challenges in Integrating Intangibles: Traditional cost-benefit analyses often overlook or underestimate social and environmental benefits, indicating the need for common definitions, functional units, and quantification methods for externalities.
* Difficulties in Evaluating Intangible Impacts: The qualitative nature of intangible impacts complicates result interpretation and communication. Current taxonomies, mainly developed within Green Public Procurement (GPP) frameworks, show limited applicability to the private sector.
* Probabilistic Methods and Data Uncertainty: While probabilistic tools like Monte Carlo simulations enhance LCC robustness, input data uncertainties, incomplete datasets, and lack of comparability--especially for late life-cycle stages--remain major obstacles.
* Data Limitations and Quality Issues: Scarcity of reliable and comprehensive databases hinders robust temporal and spatial comparisons. Data management is particularly challenging for unique assets (e.g., historical buildings) and in emerging markets.
* Barriers to LCC Implementation: High initial capital costs, large data-processing requirements, and lack of practitioner-perceived value significantly limit the adoption of LCC approaches, particularly during early design stages.
* Interoperability and Tool Integration Issues: Employing multiple non-integrated tools leads to data loss and added complexity, creating additional challenges for decision makers, especially in projects with limited resources.
* Opportunities through Technological Advancements: There is a critical need for automated tools, systematic assessment processes, and technological integration to improve LCC application and enhance decision-making reliability.
* Need for Risk Integration: Risk assessment is often underrepresented in LCC evaluations, requiring the development of new methodologies that can be systematically integrated without imposing prohibitive costs.
* Influence of Climate Risk Monetization: Recent developments, such as the EU Taxonomy, have facilitated the monetization of climate-related risks, potentially shifting investment decisions toward more sustainable options. However, further efforts are needed to monetize other intangible impacts not yet captured.  
Taken together, these findings emphasize the need for methodological innovation, cross-disciplinary integration, and technological advancement to fully unlock the potential of LCC in real estate and infrastructure decision-making.  
Conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing--original draft preparation, visualization, S.D.G.; investigation, writing--review and editing, visualization, supervision, G.R.P.; writing--review and editing, visualization, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition, S.A.d.I.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This work has been supported by the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) under the Multiannual Agreement 2023-2026 with Universidad Politecnica de Madrid in the Line A, Emerging PhD researchers.  
Not applicable.  
No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.  
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.