Integration of Social Aspects in Decision Support, Based on Life Cycle Thinking

Abstract

Abstract:Recently increasing attention has been paid to complementing environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with social aspects. The paper discusses the selection of social impacts and indicators from existing frameworks like Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) and Social Impact Assessment (SIA). Two ongoing case studies, addressing sustainability assessment within decision support, were considered: (1) Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in Indonesia; and (2) Integrated Packaging Waste Management in Spain and Portugal (FENIX). The focus was put on social impacts occurring due to decisions within these systems, such as choice of technologies, practices or suppliers. Thus, decision makers-here understood as intended users of the studies' results-are not consumers that buy (or do not buy) a product, such as in recent SLCA case-studies, but mainly institutions that decide about the design of the water or packaging waste management system. Therefore, in the FENIX project, a list of social impacts identified from literature was sent to the intended users to be ranked according to their priorities. Finally, the paper discusses to what extent the entire life cycle is reflected in OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2011, 3 563SLCA impact categories and indicators, and explains how both life-cycle and on-site-related social impacts were chosen to be assessed. However, not all indicators in the two projects will assess all stages of the life cycle, because of their varying relevance in the different stages, data availability and practical interest of decision makers.

El reto de la Evaluación del Impacto Social de la Tecnología en España

“…Esta alternativa se orienta primordialmente a identificar y evaluar los potenciales impactos socio-económicos negativos y positivos de los productos a lo largo de su ciclo de vida. Labuschagne y Brent (2006 y 2008) definen un conjunto de criterios y subcriterios para medir el impacto social de iniciativas operativas de proyectos y tecnologías de la industria de procesos; Dreyer et al (2010) han desarrollado un marco de trabajo para la incorporación del pilar social en el análisis de ciclo de vida social en el sector manufacturero; y Lehman et al (2011) han revisado los impactos sociales identificados en dos proyectos vinculados a la gestión del agua.…”

Indicators and tools for assessing sustainability impacts of the forest bioeconomy

“…Similar categorization of indicators into impact categories can be found in Jørgensen et al (2007)). However, some methodological and practical restrictions in integrating social indicators to decision making do exist (Lehmann et al, 2011). For example, issues of social dimension are perhaps the most casespecific ones and should be chosen accordingly.…”

“…Following Lehmann et al (2011), the social dimension has five main categories of stakeholders: workers/employees, local communities, society (national and global), consumers and value chain actors. These can be further broken down into subcategories (e.g.…”

Additional Indicators to Promote Social Sustainability within Government Programs: Equity and Efficiency

“…Socially sustainable programs should make sure they are using their resources properly in order to maximize the amount of social development promoted (they need to be Efficient); and they should make sure they are being fair [7] and they are helping those who need it most (they need to be Equitable). However, the task is not easy: it is impossible to make a program more equitable, and increase distribution to poorer places, when the program is evaluated based on costs.…”

“…Furthermore, literature provides the "indicator policy factsheets" for an easy use of indicators [23], methodologies for indicators development [24] and the Social Life Cycle Assessment methodology for a full analysis of social impacts of a product [7]. With broad objectives, perspectives, and research areas, sustainability science has not achieved a clear and unique methodology with universal indicators [10].…”