scholarly journals Analysis of Worker Category Social Impacts in Different Types of Concrete Plant Operations: A Case Study in South Korea

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seungjun Roh ◽  
Sungho Tae ◽  
Rakhyun Kim ◽  
Daniela Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Social Impacts ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment

As sustainable development has emerged as a priority on the international agenda, increasing emphasis has been placed on “Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA),” wherein environmental, economic, and social performance are comprehensively integrated. This study, as part of an LCSA approach, uses Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) to analyze the worker category social impact for concrete plants in South Korea. For the analysis, three types of concrete plant with different operating systems were selected and evaluated: Direct operation, operated by dedicated concrete manufacturers, and operated by cement suppliers. Eleven major social topics, which were mentioned in the international standards and international institutes, were selected as the subjects of evaluation; the social impacts were evaluated by applying the evaluative criteria for social topics presented in the Handbook for Product Social Life Cycle Assessment of PRé Sustainability. We determined that the highest social impact was found in concrete plants operated by cement suppliers (0.77), followed by plants operated by dedicated concrete manufacturers (0.50), and finally by plants with direct operations (0.09). These results can be applied by concrete plants to improve worker category areas in which they are lacking and by future researchers to evaluate the sustainable development of a variety of industries.

scholarly journals Sustainability Assessment with Integrated Circular Economy Principles: A Toy Case Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3856
Author(s):  
Rebeka Kovačič Lukman ◽  
Vasja Omahne ◽  
Damjan Krajnc
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Product Life Cycle ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Social Impacts ◽  
Life Cycle Costing ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment

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.

scholarly journals SOCIAL IMPACT EVALUATION OF TEA PRODUCTION USING SOCIAL LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT (S-LCA) METHOD IN CAMERON HIGHLANDS, PAHANG, MALAYSIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Hamzah Sharaai ◽  
Khairul Izzudin Muhammad ◽  
Yeoh Geok Wah
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Social Impacts ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cameron Highlands ◽  
Tea Production

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.

scholarly journals SOCIAL IMPACT EVALUATION OF TEA PRODUCTION USING SOCIAL LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT (S-LCA) METHOD IN CAMERON HIGHLANDS, PAHANG, MALAYSIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Hamzah Sharaai ◽  
Khairul Izzudin Muhammad ◽  
Yeoh Geok Wah
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Social Impacts ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cameron Highlands ◽  
Tea Production

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.

scholarly journals Integration of Sustainability Criteria and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment Method into Construction Material Selection in Developing Countries: The Case of Vietnam

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 1145-1156
Author(s):  
Trong Hung Dinh ◽  
Trung Hieu Dinh ◽  
Uwe Götze
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Material Selection ◽  
Construction Material ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Sustainability Criteria

A sustainable development concerning economic, environmental, and social aspects is a global need as well as challenge in general and especially regarding the selection of construction materials. However, it is assumed that the importance of sustainability criteria is different in developed and developing countries. This is relevant for the application of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment, a method that integrates the established methods for economic, ecological, and social evaluation (Life Cycle Costing, Life Cycle Assessment, and Social Life Cycle Assessment) without explicitly including importance weightings. This paper aims to review the reality of sustainable development in construction material selection in Vietnam, a developing country. A list of 18 sustainability criteria was set up by reviewing previous studies and using a questionnaire. These criteria were ranked and used to calculate the importance of weightings based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process method and a Likert scale. The results showed that the “price of material” was ranked as the first among the sustainability criteria. It is also pointed out that 42.06, 29.96, and 27.98 are the weightings of Life Cycle Costing, Life Cycle Assessment, and Social Life Cycle Assessment results, respectively. Besides, 11 obstacles for integrating sustainability criteria into material selection were identified in the questionnaire, and 4 out of them were marked as showing “high” importance.

scholarly journals Comprehensive Evaluation of the Sustainable Development of Battery Electric Vehicles in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 5635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wang ◽  
Zhou ◽  
Li ◽  
Wei
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Electric Vehicles ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Battery Electric Vehicles ◽  
The Social

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.

scholarly journals A Prospective Social Life Cycle Assessment (sLCA) of Electricity Generation from Municipal Solid Waste in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 10177
Author(s):  
Oluwaseun Nubi ◽  
Stephen Morse ◽  
Richard J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Municipal Solid Waste ◽  
Solid Waste ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Electricity Generation ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Electricity Supply

This research assesses the social impacts that could arise from the potential waste-to-energy (WtE) generation of electricity from municipal solid waste (MSW) in the cities of Lagos and Abuja in Nigeria. Social life cycle assessment (sLCA) was the main analytical approach used coupled with a participatory approach to identify relevant social issues to serve as the potential sLCA impact ‘subcategories’. Focus group research in both cities led to the identification of 11 social issues that were transformed into social impact subcategories with appropriate indicators for the sLCA. These were populated with data from a questionnaire-based survey with approximately 140 stakeholders. The results indicated that the impact subcategories “Improved Electricity Supply” and “Income” were ranked respectively as having the most and the least significant social impacts associated with the potential adoption of WtE in these two cities in Nigeria. Overall, the research showed that the expected social impact was higher for WtE electricity generation in Lagos than in Abuja. This difference may be related to the higher population and greater amounts of waste in Lagos and its position as a hub for many of the country’s commercial and industrial activities which have long been affected by inadequate electricity supply. This study also provides an example of the use of participatory processes as an important approach in sLCA for the elucidation of social issues that are directly pertinent to key local perspectives when considering such technology implementations.

scholarly journals Exploring the Current Challenges and Opportunities of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rizal Taufiq Fauzi ◽  
Patrick Lavoie ◽  
Luca Sorelli ◽  
Mohammad Davoud Heidari ◽  
Ben Amor
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Research Gaps ◽  
Hotspot Analysis ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Sustainability decision making is a complex task for policy makers, considering the possible unseen consequences it may entail. With a broader scope covering environmental, economic, and social aspects, Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is a promising holistic method to deal with that complexity. However, to date, this method is limited to the hotspot analysis of a product, service, or system, and hence only assesses direct impacts and overlooks the indirect ones (or consequences). This critical literature review aims to explore the challenges and the research gaps related to the integration of three methods in LCSA representing three pillars of sustainability: (Environmental) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). The challenges and the research gaps that appear when pairing two of these tools with each other are identified and discussed, i.e., the temporal issues, different perspectives, the indirect consequences, etc. Although this study does not aim to remove the shadows in LCSA methods, critical research gaps are identified in order to be addressed in future works. More case studies are also recommended for a deeper understanding of methodological trade-offs that might happen, especially when dealing with the consequential perspective.

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