Area of protection in S-LCA: human well-being or societal quality

Abstract

The set of stakeholders included in the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) guideline (UNEP/SETAC 2009) could create confusion as to the target of the assessment: individuals or society. This paper attempts to develop the epistemological foundations of S-LCA in social sciences. Its major discussion is who should be addressed in S-LCA: individuals or society as a whole. This article contributes to the definition of a social life cycle based on sociological perspectives. Methods: This paper is a critical evaluation of well-being methodologies and sociological perspectives used to analyze the effects of a change in a social system. The two perspectives, individualistic and holistic, have been evaluated based on four criteria: subjectivity, social values, possibility of aggregation of social data and rebound effects. We have examined different points of view in the sociologic discipline to determine which perspective would be more suitable. Insights have been taken from structural-functionalist, symbolic interactionism and conflict theories to answer the troubling debates identified in S-LCA: Can the life cycle defined for LCA be used in S-LCA? More specifically, does S-LCA include the same actors and timeline as LCA? Does aggregation of data of individuals convey the characteristics of a society? Results and discussion: Organizational or technical change induce new cost and benefits in the social system. When focusing on the well-being of individuals, little emphasis is directed to the relations between people and thus social costs and benefits are not valorized. The sociological perspectives that deal with social change (structuralism, functionalism and symbolic interaction) seek to explain social phenomena based on the relations that are established and affected by a social phenomenon. The sociologic concept has brought insights to the definition of a social life cycle, the object of S-LCA. Conclusions: This paper is an attempt to bring the attention of S-LCA practitioners to the concept of social change defined by sociologists. Whether society is considered as a sum of individuals or as an independent entity determines our approach as individualistic or holistic. This would obviously influence our perspective in the selection of stakeholders of the life cycle, the boundaries of the analysis and the indicators to be assessed. We recognize the central social matter of a product system as its contribution to the overall order in a society.

Social Life Cycle Assessments: A Review on Past Development, Advances and Methodological Challenges

“…At the same time, cut-off approaches for foreground and background systems or stakeholder categories are used to limit the study to a feasible scope [21]. Foreground systems traditionally display processes within the company's sphere of influence [86].…”

“…A total of 87 out of 111 publications (78%) analyzed within this review used the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines as the primary source for S-LCA structures, which confirms the heavy reliance. The very limited critical reflection as well as the missing specifications and the variety of approaches impede and falsify S-LCA-related conclusions, especially when used as a corporate decision-making tool [21,88].…”

“…The greatest challenge of these methods is that such pathways often require quantitative data, which is rarely available because causal relations of social and socio-economic impacts are often not known or not simple enough to allow quantitative cause-effect modeling [90,99,128]. This is also due to the uncertainty of behavioral impacts, which is a natural component of human interactions [21,129]. Similar challenges face authors that try to answer social phenomena by using commonly known pathways through Environmental Life Cycle Inventory (E-LCI) data, because very few social impacts can be assessed with a pure quantitative and generic method [43].…”

“…Russo Garrido et al [19] followed a similar path by exploring applied categorization and weighting methods. Others broadened the understanding of approaches used to create the product system and cut-off criteria for S-LCA [20] or discuss epistemological challenges linked to cut-off criteria, system boundaries or Areas of Protection (AoP) [21]. Review papers are also used to understand the applicability of S-LCA, such as that of Thorstensen and Forsberg [22], who searched for reasons why and how S-LCA could be helpful for responsible research and innovation, or Lucchetti et al [23] who analyzed which sectors performed case studies in the past.…”

Capability of social life cycle assessment for analyzing the artisanal small-scale gold mining sector—case study in the Amazonian rainforest in Brazil

“…The SLCA method was designed to identify and evaluate positive and negative social aspects, and it provides an inventory of social aspects and involves weighting and aggregation (Benoît and Mazijn 2009). In the SLCA research field, it is still challenging to identify the effects of relations and clarify where they end (Soltanpour et al 2019).…”