State of the art in S-LCA: integrating literature review and automatic text analysis

Abstract

Abstract\ud Purpose Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) method lacks\ud of standard and code of practice. The aim of the study is to\ud classify the wide variety of contributions on S-LCA for tracking\ud the development of different themes and for defining and\ud classifying the main approaches in a systematic and reproducible\ud way.\ud Methods The research addressed to study a collection of 51\ud articles published between January 2006 and November 2014\ud using statistical criteria. We used automatic text analysis\ud (ATA) tools related to lexicon analysis to identify keywords\ud useful in tracing the main topics covered in articles published\ud in different periods. We conducted principal component analysis\ud (PCA) to classify the different approaches in the literature\ud and to outline the orientations of the various research groups.\ud Results and discussion The results from lexicon analysis\ud showed a rapid succession of different topics covered in\ud the analyzed period. This alternation is strongly affected by\ud the introduction of UNEP/Society of Environmental\ud Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) S-LCA guidelines\ud and methodological sheets. PCA analysis enabled to synthesize\ud the information related to the numerous\ud approaches. Results did not show a clear division into\ud groups which indicates the absence of a dominant position\ud on the subject in the literature.\ud Conclusions This study attempted to map the state of art in SLCA\ud integrating literature review with multivariate statistical\ud techniques. The analysis showed a highly fragmented field.\ud These results confirm the existence of a variety of approaches\ud that in part have already been identified by literature reviews\ud on S-LCA. Alignment with the results in the literature confirms\ud ATA to be a suitable instrument for the realization of\ud reviews. Moreover, being systematic and reproducible allows\ud ATA to be applied repeatedly, expanding the number of articles\ud and topics analyzed

Indicators in Social Life Cycle Assessment: A Review of Frameworks, Theories, and Empirical Experience

“…Therefore, the general scientific field has become fragmented (Arcese et al. ) without an established set of commonly accepted indicators to measure social performance (Andrews et al. ; Traverso et al.…”

“…Accordingly, SLCA remains a fragmented field (Arcese et al. ; Corona et al. ) that lacks empirical experience (Baumann et al.…”

Markets, Sustainability Management and Entrepreneurship

“…8.3), for example, inputs, outputs and sustainability-related impacts of a product system are compiled and evaluated throughout the entire life cycle of a product. While ecological LCAs are widespread and often already standardised, social LCAs are slowly beginning to develop as well (Arcese et al 2016;Kühnen and Hahn 2017). It is not enough, however, to simply assess performance.…”

Preface

“…The attention of Arcese et al (2017) (State of the art in S-LCA: integrating literature review and automatic text analysis) is devoted to elaborate, by lexicon analysis, a general classification of the approaches in a systematic and reproducible way. The results showed a rapid succession of different topics covered in the analyzed period; out of which, four topics are explaining more than 60% of the variation: (1) use of generic terminology; (2) S-LCA is company-oriented (has to be integrated with other decision tools); (3) S-LCA is stakeholderoriented (willingness to integrate stakeholders in its development); and (4) underlines what is specific to S-LCA.…”