Perspectives on Social LCA: Contributions from the 6th International Conference

133 Pages·2020·3.165 MB·English

by  Marzia Traverso, Luigia Petti, Alessandra Zamagni

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Marzia Traverso
Luigia Petti
Alessandra Zamagni
Perspectives on
Social LCA
Contributions
from the 6th
International
Conference
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Marzia Traverso Luigia Petti
Alessandra Zamagni
Editors
Perspectives on Social LCA
Contributions from the 6th International
Conference
Editors
MarziaTraverso LuigiaPetti
InstituteforSustainabilityinCivil DipartimentodiEconomia
Engineering UniversityofChieti-Pescara
RWTHAachenUniversity Pescara,Italy
Aachen,Germany
AlessandraZamagni
Ecoinnovazionesrl
Spin-offENEA
Bologna,Italy
ISSN2191-5547 ISSN2191-5555 (electronic)
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Preface
TheSocialLifeCycleAssessment(S-LCA)isofficiallyrecognisedtobepartofLife
CycleThinking(LCT),andsinceMay2018,itisagainatopicundertheumbrellaof
theUNEnvironment Life CycleInitiative activities. Infact,thecurrent guidelines,
publishedbyUNEPLifeCycleInitiativein2009,areunderrevision,intheframe-
work of a project sponsored by the Life Cycle Initiative, and their launch with
relative pilot projects, is expected at LCM2019 Conference in September 2019. In
the last 10 years, several S-LCA developments and implementations have been
carried out, increasing the importance of the S-LCA in both private and public
sectors.Giventheeconomiccrisis,attentionhasbeenbroughtonthesocialcompo-
nent of the sustainability both in Europe and in the developed countries more in
general,highlightingthatthemanagementofthesocialissuesisnotonlyaneedbut
alsoanopportunity,becauseitfurtherqualifiestheproduct/serviceonthemarket.In
addition,itisanopportunitytorewardthoseorganisationsthatarealreadycreating
socialvalue throughthe reinvestmentoftheirprofitsinto cultural andsocialinitia-
tivesforthecommunity.Inotherwords,organisationscanbetheleverageforsocial
value creation, and their competitiveness can benefit from it. For this reason, the
interest of the policy-makers has increased in order to identify the positive and
negative social hotspots generated by a product or a company in different local
contests.
The S-LCA conferences have today reached thesixth version and it istoday an
internationaleventthatallowsexperts andnon-expertsfromtheacademy,industry
andpolicytomeetandexchangeonthistopicandtodiscussitschallenges.Several
improvementsandmoreinterestfromstakeholdersoutsidethescientificcommunity
have been registered since the first seminar held in Lyngby at the Technical
UniversityofDenmarkon31May2010,promotedbyDr.LouiseCamillaDreyer.
TheaimofthesixthInternationalConferenceonS-LCAPeople&Places4Partnership
istodiscussaboutthekeyroleofS-LCAasadecision-makingtoolinthedefinition
of strategies for social sustainability, thus supporting both public and private busi-
nesses in making more informed decisions. In this conference, three sessions have
beenorganised:scientificpresentations,industrysessionsandapolicyworkshopto
v
vi Preface
underline the necessity to discuss the potentials, challenges and gaps of S-LCA at
differentlevels.Theconferencehasregisteredmorethan130participantsandmore
than60contributions,whoseabstractsarereportedintheconferenceproceedings.A
limited number of full papers have been selected to be published in this book to
representthestateoftheartandsomeofthecurrentinitiativesandimplementations
ofS-LCA.ThebookstartswithfewexamplesonfurtherdevelopmentsoftheS-LCA
phases, in particular: the definition of the functional unit, in the framework of the
goal and scope phase (Arzoumanidis et al. 2018), and the definition and develop-
mentofimpactpathwayandweightingapproachesintheimpactassessmentphase
(Weidema 2018, Di Cesare et al. 2018, Benoit-Norris et al. 2018 and Breno et al.
2018). Then, some examples ofalternative approaches arepresented, developed in
theindustrialcontexttomeasurethesocialimpact(Baumannetal.2018,Salingetal.
2018,andVuaillatetal.2018).Finally,threecontributionsarefocusingonpractical
implementationsofS-LCAtodifferentactivitysectors:wastemanagement(Ibañez-
Forés et al. 2018), automotive components (Zanchi et al. 2018) and agriculture
system(Frank2018).
Aachen,Germany M.Traverso
Bologna,Italy A.Zamagni
Pescara,Italy L.Petti
Contents
1 FunctionalUnitDefinitionCriteriainLifeCycleAssessment
andSocialLifeCycleAssessment:ADiscussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
IoannisArzoumanidis,ManuelaD’Eusanio,AndreaRaggi,
andLuigiaPetti
2 TowardsaTaxonomyforSocialImpactPathwayIndicators. . . . . 11
BoP.Weidema
3 ANewSchemefortheEvaluationofSocio-EconomicPerformance
ofOrganizations:AWell-BeingIndicatorApproach. . . . . . . . . . . . 25
SilviaDiCesare,AlfredoCartone,andLuigiaPetti
4 StructureofaNetPositiveAnalysisforSupplyChain
SocialImpacts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
CatherineBenoitNorris,GregoryA.Norris,LinaAzuero,
andJohnPflueger
5 WeightingandScoringinSocialLifeCycleAssessment. . . . . . . . . 45
BrenoBarrosTellesdoCarmo,SaraRussoGarrido,GabriellaArcese,
andMariaClaudiaLucchetti
6 BeyondaCorporateSocialResponsibilityContextTowards
MethodologicalPluralisminSocialLifeCycleAssessment:
ExploringAlternativeSocialTheoreticalPerspectives. . . . . . . . . . . 53
HenrikkeBaumannandRickardArvidsson
7 SustainableGuarInitiative,SocialImpactCharacterization
ofanIntegratedSustainableProject. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
MarieVuaillat,AlainWathelet,andPaulArsac
8 Generation,CalculationandInterpretationofSocialImpacts
®
withtheSocialAnalysisofSEEbalance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
PeterSaling,AnaAlbaPerez,PeterKölsch,andThomasGrünenwald
vii
viii Contents
9 ProposalofSocialIndicatorstoAssesstheSocialPerformance
ofWasteManagementSystemsinDevelopingCountries:
ABrazilianCaseStudy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
ValeriaIbañez-Forés,MaríaD.Bovea,
andClaudiaCoutinho-Nóbrega
10 SocialAssessmentintheDesignPhaseofAutomotiveComponent
UsingtheProductSocialImpactAssessmentMethod. . . . . . . . . . . 105
LauraZanchi,AlessandraZamagni,SilviaMaltese,
RubinaRiccomagno,andMassimoDelogu
11 SocialLifeCycleAssessmentinAgriculturalSystems–U.S.Corn
ProductionasaCaseStudy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
MarkusFrank,ThomasLaginess,andJanSchöneboom
Chapter 1
fi
Functional Unit De nition Criteria in Life
Cycle Assessment and Social Life Cycle
Assessment: A Discussion
IoannisArzoumanidis,ManuelaD’Eusanio,AndreaRaggi,andLuigiaPetti
Abstract The definition of a Functional Unit (FU) is essential for building and
modellingaproductsysteminLifeCycleAssessment(LCA).AFUisaquantified
description of the function of a product that serves as the reference basis for all
calculations regarding impact assessment. A function may be based on different
features of the product under study, such as performance, aesthetics, technical
quality, additional services, costs, etc. Whilst the FU definition is typical in LCA,
this does not seem to be a common practice in Social Life Cycle Assessment
(S-LCA),eventhoughaFUdefinitionisrequired.UnlikeLCA,wherequantitative
data are mainly collected and processed, the assessment of the social and socio-
economic impacts in S-LCA is based on a prevalence of qualitative and semi-
quantitative data, a fact that renders the assessment to be somehow unfriendly.
Moreover, whilst in LCA a product-oriented approach is typical, S-LCA tends to
be a business-oriented methodology, where the emphasis of the social assessment
lies on the behaviour of the organisations that are involved in the processes under
study rather than on the function that is generated by a product. Indeed, several S-
LCAcasestudieswerefound intheliteratureinwhichtheFUisnotdiscussed, let
alone defined. The objective of this article is to contribute to analysing the criteria
used for the definition of a FU in LCA and verifying whether these criteria can be
suitableforS-LCAcasestudiesapplications.Forthisreason,aliteraturereviewwas
carriedoutonLCAinordertoidentifywhetherandhowthisissuehasbeentackled
withsofar.Inaddition,asecondliteraturereviewwasperformedinordertoverify
how the FU has been introduced in the framework of the S-LCA methodology.
Finally, an investigation of the analysis results, in terms of the selected FU, is
proposed in view of an ever-growing need for a combination of the LCA and S-
LCAmethodologiesintoabroaderLifeCycleSustainabilityAssessment(LCSA).
I.Arzoumanidis(*)·M.D’Eusanio·A.Raggi·L.Petti
DepartmentofEconomicStudies(DEc),University“G.d’Annunzio”,Pescara,Italy
e-mail:[email protected]
©TheAuthor(s)2020 1
M.Traversoetal.,PerspectivesonSocialLCA,SpringerBriefsinEnvironmental
Science,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01508-4_1