scholarly journals Social life cycle assessment of biomethane production and distribution in Latvia

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.

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.


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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 6671
Author(s):  
Diana Reinales ◽  
David Zambrana-Vasquez ◽  
Aitana Saez-De-Guinoa

Environmental and economic impact assessment of products have a long record, while social performance analysis of products have less references in the scientific literature due its particularities and the adaptations needed for the features of the studied subject. In addition, there is a lack of a methodological framework of its application in the analysis of value chains, with the aim of estimating the impacts of technical innovations from the social point of view. This paper describes the theoretical framework and impact assessment approach for the Social Life Cycle Assessment of product value chains under a circular economy approach by applying a scoring system in different subcategories and indicators, considering the plastic packaging sector as a case study. Twelve subcategories have been chosen, because of their relevance to the case study, related to the impacts on the labor conditions, consumers’ well-being, end-of-life of the product, local community conditions, technology and suppliers, among others. The validation of the methodology in the plastic packaging sector is done by considering the main stakeholders involved in the value chain and the particularities of the sector.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3.7) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Salwa Mahmood ◽  
Mohd Fahrul Hassan ◽  
Abdul Rahman Hemdi ◽  
Muhamad Zameri Mat Saman

In order to achieve sustainable product design process, aspects such of environmental, economic and social should be balanced.  This paper discussed on sustainability of product design, conceptual basis of life cycle assessment (LCA), review of LCA at several product design, methodology of proposed framework and discussion on strengths and limitations of LCA. This paper proposed to develop a framework for improving the product design process based on LCA tool. The aims is to calculate potential impact of environment, economic and social aspects during product design process. For environmental aspects, LCA tool will be used. For economic and social considerations, life cycle costing (LCC) and social life cycle assessment will be applied respectively. At the end, proposed framework are able to help designers to improve product design by considering all sustainability aspects.  


Resources ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olimpia Martucci ◽  
Gabriella Arcese ◽  
Chiara Montauti ◽  
Alessia Acampora

When examining the triple bottom line approach (TBL) in regard to sustainability, social aspects are the less explored in the context of wine production. This paper analyzes the social sustainability assessment tools available for companies who need to consider their social impacts. For this purpose, we started from the analysis conducted in the work, which was the integration between the territory indicator of VIVA project “Sustainable Wine”, which is the sustainable wine project and social life cycle assessment analysis for the wine sector. In this study, the social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) methodology was compared with the VIVA certification requirements for Italian wine production. The main research objective was to analyze differences and similarities between the two indicator sets for the evaluation of the social aspects related to this sector. Starting from a general introduction to the agri-food and wine sector, we provide an overview of the VIVA project and of the S-LCA for the assessment methodology. Subsequently, we focus on the wine sector and the main players involved, as well as the primary production phases. Finally, we compare the two tools—the S-LCA and the VIVA project—and discuss the main differences between the two instruments and the possibilities for future works to develop the integration of these indicators sets to broader the analyses of the socioeconomic impacts of the wine sector.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 4419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Rivera-Huerta ◽  
María de la Salud Rubio Lozano ◽  
Alejandro Padilla-Rivera ◽  
Leonor Patricia Güereca

This study evaluates the social performance of monoculture (MC), intensive silvopastoral (ISP), and native silvopastoral (NSP) livestock production systems in the tropical region of southeastern Mexico through a social life cycle assessment (SCLA) approach. The methodological framework proposed by the United Nations Environmental Program/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) (2009) was employed based on a scoring approach with a performance scale ranging from 1 (very poor) to 4 (outstanding). Twelve livestock ranches for calf production were evaluated using 18 impact subcategories associated with the categories “human rights”, “working conditions”, “health and safety”, “socioeconomic repercussions”, and “governance”. The stakeholders evaluated were workers, the local community, society, and value chain actors. The ranches had performance scores between 1.78 (very poor) and 2.17 (poor). The overall average performance of the ranches by production system was 1.98, 1.96, and 1.97 for the MC, ISP, and NSP systems, respectively. The statistical analysis shows that there is no significant difference in the social performance of the livestock production systems. This assessment indicates that the cattle ranches analyzed in Mexico have poor or very poor social performance. The results show that socioeconomic and political contexts exert a greater influence on the social performance of livestock production systems than does their type of technology.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document