2nd International Seminar in Social Life Cycle Assessment—recent developments in assessing the social impacts of product life cycles

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 940-943 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Macombe ◽  
Pauline Feschet ◽  
Michel Garrabé ◽  
Denis Loeillet
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Hamzah Sharaai ◽  
Khairul Izzudin Muhammad ◽  
Yeoh Geok Wah

Commercial convention of tea production and plantation at the largest scale in this country has shown an escalation year by year, together with the high demand for tea products in the Malaysian market. This may have a direct social impact throughout the life cycle of tea production. Thus, this research sought to identify the social impacts from the overall process of tea production. This study used the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) involving descriptive analysis by assessing the social impacts associated with the stakeholders of tea production using three sets of questionnaires. The studies were conducted at one of the highest tea production companies in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. The findings of the stakeholders showed a good level of satisfaction because there was no significant negative effect. Overall, the social aspects of the tea production met the required criteria in terms of social significance. However, there were some social aspects that can be improved by the factory in the future such as health and safety, discrimination, job opportunity and local community involvement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (13) ◽  
pp. 4459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bardia Naghshineh ◽  
Francisco Lourenço ◽  
Radu Godina ◽  
Celeste Jacinto ◽  
Helena Carvalho

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is viewed as a disruptive technology with the potential to replace many manufacturing processes. With its rapid proliferation in recent years, it is crucial to understand how to measure this technology’s social impacts. There are many studies available in the existing literature regarding the economic and environmental impacts of AM technology. However, research regarding the social impacts of this technology is still scarce. To this end, this research has developed a framework based on Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) methodology to measure AM products’ social impacts throughout their life cycle stages. The proposed framework includes an underlying mathematical model that was developed to allow for the aggregation of indicator scores. Additionally, cut-off scores were determined to differentiate between positive and negative social impacts. This framework can be applied to case studies, which provides a final score that quantifies the social impacts of an AM product throughout all its life cycle stages. It also provides scores for each stakeholder category and life cycle stage, which facilitates the identification of hotspots that require attention from organizations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Hamzah Sharaai ◽  
Khairul Izzudin Muhammad ◽  
Yeoh Geok Wah

Commercial convention of tea production and plantation at the largest scale in this country has shown an escalation year by year, together with the high demand for tea products in the Malaysian market. This may have a direct social impact throughout the life cycle of tea production. Thus, this research sought to identify the social impacts from the overall process of tea production. This study used the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) involving descriptive analysis by assessing the social impacts associated with the stakeholders of tea production using three sets of questionnaires. The studies were conducted at one of the highest tea production companies in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. The findings of the stakeholders showed a good level of satisfaction because there was no significant negative effect. Overall, the social aspects of the tea production met the required criteria in terms of social significance. However, there were some social aspects that can be improved by the factory in the future such as health and safety, discrimination, job opportunity and local community involvement.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3856
Author(s):  
Rebeka Kovačič Lukman ◽  
Vasja Omahne ◽  
Damjan Krajnc

When considering the sustainability of production processes, research studies usually emphasise environmental impacts and do not adequately address economic and social impacts. Toy production is no exception when it comes to assessing sustainability. Previous research on toys has focused solely on assessing environmental aspects and neglected social and economic aspects. This paper presents a sustainability assessment of a toy using environmental life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, and social life cycle assessment. We conducted an inventory analysis and sustainability impact assessment of the toy to identify the hotspots of the system. The main environmental impacts are eutrophication, followed by terrestrial eco-toxicity, acidification, and global warming. The life cycle costing approach examined the economic aspect of the proposed design options for toys, while the social assessment of the alternative designs revealed social impacts along the product life cycle. In addition, different options based on the principles of the circular economy were analysed and proposed in terms of substitution of materials and shortening of transport distances for the toy studied.


Resources ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela D’Eusanio ◽  
Monica Serreli ◽  
Luigia Petti

An increasing global focus on sustainability has affected the jewellery industry by raising questions about its environmental and social impacts and ethics due to the negative impacts of gold mining. It is essential to consider the social aspects of mining activities on the socio-economic environment and the affected individuals in order to understand the sustainability of the jewellery industry in a better way. Nonetheless, this is a gap in the evaluation of the issues of jewellery in the other phases of the life cycle, observed in the literature. For these reasons, the goal of this study is to assess the social and socio-economic aspects of a piece of jewellery from the artisan’s point of view by considering the relationship between a piece of jewellery and the local community. The United National Environmental Programme/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) Guidelines on Social Life-Cycle Assessment, the UNEP/SETAC Methodological Sheets and the Subcategory Assessment Method were implemented. The findings show that a piece of jewellery can play an important role in supporting the local cultural heritage by innovating the traditional product, and promoting educational activities related to the history of the product and the territory. Consequently, the local community with its historical background gives an added value to the piece of jewellery. Further research on this topic is desirable in order to improve the knowledge of this particular sector and to identify other social issues that can be involved in this product.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 168781401881227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhen Shang ◽  
Meidan Wang ◽  
Daizhong Su ◽  
Qinhui Liu ◽  
Shifan Zhu

Social life cycle assessment is an important method to assess products’ social impacts throughout their life cycles. There are already some indicators and software to assist conducting social life cycle assessment. However, it is hard for users to share or reuse assessment results because of different application data structures. To resolve this problem, a knowledge-based social life cycle assessment–aided design method is developed in this research. With this method, all elements in the social life cycle assessment process are analyzed and represented as classes, their relationships are described as object properties, and the data structure is represented as data properties to construct an ontology system for social life cycle assessment. Based on the ontology, a social life cycle assessment–aided product development web is developed. According to the data property structure, a bidirectional mapping between database and ontology is realized using JENA and ontology-based data access, which enables the result data to be automatically inputted into ontology individuals. Thus, the result data can be accumulated, shared, and reused among users. A case study with a floor product as well as a user test is carried out to prove the feasibility and usability of the web. The ontology-based social life cycle assessment–aided design method provides users with a new high-efficiency approach, setting the foundation for the intellectualization of life cycle assessment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 5635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wang ◽  
Zhou ◽  
Li ◽  
Wei

Due to the rapid growth in the total number of vehicles in China, energy consumption and environmental pollution are serious problems. The development of electric vehicles (EVs) has become one of the important measures for solving these problems. As EVs are in a period of rapid development, sustainability research on them is conducive to the timely discovery of—and solution to—problems in the development process, but current research on the sustainability of EVs is still scarce. Based on the strategic development direction of EVs in China, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) were chosen as the research object of this study. The theory and method of the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) were used to study the sustainability of BEVs. Specifically, the indicators of the life cycle assessment (LCA) were constructed, and the GaBi software was used to assess the environmental dimensions. The framework of life cycle costing (LCC) was used to assess the economic dimensions from the perspective of consumers. The indicators of the social life cycle assessment (SLCA) of stakeholders were constructed to assess the social dimension. Then, the method of the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) was selected for multicriteria decision-making in order to integrate the three dimensions. A specific conclusion was drawn from a comparison of BEVs and internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). The study found that the life cycle sustainability of ICEVs in China was better than that of BEVs. This result might be unexpected, but there were reasons for it. Through sensitivity analysis, it was concluded that the current power structure and energy consumption in the operation phase of BEVs had a higher environmental impact, and the high cost of batteries and the government subsidy policy had a higher impact on the cost of BEVs. Corresponding suggestions are put forward at the end of the article.


Author(s):  
Katrina Karklina ◽  
Dzintra Slisane ◽  
Francesko Romagnoli ◽  
Dagnija Blumberga

<em>A </em>social life cycle assessment is proposed for the evaluation of the social potential impact in regard to the production and use of biomethane derived from biomass (algae and manure) in Latvia. The Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) is used to evaluate the social performances, which have been selected based on literature, statistics and legislation data. Seven alternatives are evaluated by experts and the best alternative is figured out.


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