Rigor in social life cycle assessment: improving the scientific grounding of SLCA

Grubert, Emily

doi:10.1007/s11367-016-1117-6

Cited by 49 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…Conducting clear, transparent, and rigorous analysis that explicitly engages relevant value judgments associated with these decision elements presents a major challenge (see, e.g., Cowell et al. ; Finnveden ; Grubert ; Powell et al. ; Reap et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of the three individual life cycle methods, S‐LCA is the least developed to date, with major outstanding questions about indicators, areas of protection, functional unit definitions, analytical targets, and others (Chhipi‐Shrestha et al. ; Grubert ; Kloepffer ; Iofrida et al. ; Sala et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Completeness from a decision analysis perspective means addressing the major elements of a decision, including prospects (probabilistic alternative futures that involve risk, which map to the alternatives defined for producing a functional unit within LCA), uncertainties, risk attitudes, and preferences (see, e.g., Kahneman and Tversky 1979;Hastie 2001;Howard 1988;Howard and Abbas 2015). Conducting clear, transparent, and rigorous analysis that explicitly engages relevant value judgments associated with these decision elements presents a major challenge (see, e.g., Cowell et al 2002;Finnveden 1999;Grubert 2016;Powell et al 1997;Reap et al 2008). Perhaps most importantly, there are not single, objectively correct approaches to making the many value judgments embedded in life cycle methods (see, e.g., Finnveden 1997;Goedkoop et al 1998;Hofstetter 1998;Hofstetter et al 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Need for a Preference‐Based Multicriteria Prioritization Framework in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

Grubert

2017

J of Industrial Ecology

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Summary Life cycle thinking is a valuable tool for integrated assessment of the environmental, social, and economic outcomes of human activities. The combination of the three as life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is a powerful decision support tool, but it also presents important design challenges. Among the most important challenges is how to include subjective information necessary for defining the major elements of a decision: prospects to decide among, uncertainty, risk attitudes, and preferences. Previous work on values in life cycle methods has addressed prospects, uncertainty, and risk attitudes. This article builds on that work by arguing that given LCSA's broad scope, explicit and standardized intercategory preferences are especially important for improving its value for decision makers. Practitioners should not be solely responsible for the value judgments necessary to integrate impact categories within and across environmental life cycle assessment (E‐LCA), social LCA (S‐LCA), and life cycle costing evaluations for LCSA. Neither should this task fall entirely to decision makers, particularly as life cycle–grounded decisions are highly sensitive to value frames. Individuals are unlikely to be able to meaningfully interpret, evaluate, and determine trade‐offs without support. This article thus proposes that LCSA leverage its multiple paradigms to rigorously generate explicit, empirically grounded intercategory preference archetypes for use in evaluating decision robustness, much as cultural theory‐based archetypes are currently used to test robustness to risk attitudes. Proof‐of‐concept data from the United States illustrate this approach, named WELFARES.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Need for a Preference‐Based Multicriteria Prioritization Framework in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

Grubert

2017

J of Industrial Ecology

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“…In this vein, data collection could benefit from increased standardization and integration with social science methods, especially frameworks for surveys and interviews(Grubert, 2018).Finally, a more standardized framework could provide important managerial and policy implications. In this paper, we contribute to this strand of literature by proposing a social impact framework encompassing a set of social impact categories, subcategories, and indicators that should be assessed when considering biobased products.…”

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confidence: 99%

Transitioning towards the bio‐economy: Assessing the social dimension through a stakeholder lens

Falcone

García

Imbert

et al. 2019

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

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International institutions are calling for a transition towards more sustainable systems of production and consumption. In this transition, sustainable innovations are expected to play an ever-increasing role. In particular, the production of innovative bio-based products-products wholly or partly derived from biological materials or from innovative production processes and/or innovative biomass such as food waste or forest residuals-will be part of this process. However, the sustainability of such products must be assured along their entire life cycle and across the three dimensions mentioned above. Against this background, our study aimed at identifying a social impact framework tailored to bio-based products. It employed a two-step methodological framework encompassing (a) identification of the relevant social impact categories, subcategories, and indicators and (b) validation of these factors, according to participatory stakeholder involvement. The validation exercise enabled us to consider a restricted number of social indicators so as to reduce the amount of data needed for assessing and decreasing related costs.

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“…2 Robustness in S-LCA Grubert (2017) (Rigor in social life cycle assessment: improving the scientific grounding of SLCA) is searching methods in social sciences for developing rigor in S-LCA. She shows that data collection can benefit from using social science frameworks for surveys and interviews.…”

Section: The Variety Of Approaches In S-lcamentioning

confidence: 99%

Preface

Macombe

Zamagni

Traverso

2017

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Rigor in social life cycle assessment: improving the scientific grounding of SLCA

Cited by 49 publications

References 78 publications

The Need for a Preference‐Based Multicriteria Prioritization Framework in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

The Need for a Preference‐Based Multicriteria Prioritization Framework in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

Transitioning towards the bio‐economy: Assessing the social dimension through a stakeholder lens

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