Achieving sustainable energy systems involves complex decision-making processes. This article addresses the combination of life-cycle (LC) approaches and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for the sustainability assessment of energy systems. Through a literature survey of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) tools for sustainability assessment of energy systems, the most commonly used criteria, data sources and tools are identified. Moreover, a review of the LC + DEA approaches available to date is performed in order to check their convenience to assess energy systems in terms of sustainability. In this sense, the central focus of the article is to explore and elucidate potentials of these combined approaches within sustainability-oriented MCDA in the field of energy. These potentials are mainly associated with the usefulness of sustainability benchmarks for decision-makers and the wide availability of DEA models and life-cycle approaches. Given the growing role of MCDA tools in energy scenario analysis and the innovative trends found in LC + DEA, a novel methodological framework is proposed: enriched energy systems modelling through (i) endogenous integration of life-cycle indicators and (ii) ranking and benchmarking of energy scenarios according to sustainability criteria using dynamic DEA. The LC + DEA concept emerges as a promising methodology to evaluate and rank prospective scenarios in energy planning, thus facilitating decision-making processes towards a sustainable energy future. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.