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Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020

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The Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) of Products provide a roadmap and a body of knowledge to help stakeholders in the assessment of social and socio-economic impacts of products’ life cycles, their related value chains and organizations. Awareness about value chain social issues such as child labor used for harvesting cotton, unpaid wages of factory workers and safety issues when using a product, raises the question of what the extent of product and organization social impacts are and how they can be improved. To answer this question, the S-LCA Guidelines present a methodology to assess the social impact of products using a life cycle perspective. This methodology builds on the more commonly known Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which focuses on environmental impacts. A key and unique feature of S-LCA, within the landscape of social assessment methodologies, is that a life cycle perspective is used to assess the social impacts of a product or organization. This means looking not only at the factory or process that produces the product, e.g. flour milling, but also at the social impacts related to all the associated processes, both upstream and downstream, e.g. grain production, transport and final distribution of the flour. In the past decade since the original S-LCA Guidelines were published, S-LCA has gained in maturity and established itself as a standalone methodology. These 2020 Guidelines provide additional information and consensus-based guidance for each step of the S-LCA, explaining the strengths and challenges of different approaches to address a varied set of questions related to the social sustainability of products and organizations. For instance, to support measuring and assessing progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The expanded framework builds on the previous edition to cover new methodological and practical developments such as social organizational LCA (SO-LCA) as well as the refinements and additions of social impact subcategories that have emerged in the literature and that are now integrated in the guidance.
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Guidelines for
SOCIAL LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF
PRODUCTS AND ORGANIZATIONS 2020
SOCIAL
ALLIANCE
Hosted by
23
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Copyright © United Nations Environment Programme, 2020
This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or non-prot purpo-
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constitute endorsement.
Cite this document as:
UNEP, 2020. Guidelines for Social Life
Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020.
Benoît Norris, C., Traverso, M., Neugebauer, S., Ekener, E.,
Schaubroeck, T., Russo Garrido, S., Berger, M., Valdivia, S.,
Lehmann, A., Finkbeiner, M., Arcese, G. (eds.). United Na-
tions Environment Programme (UNEP).
23
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Guidelines for
SOCIAL LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF
PRODUCTS AND ORGANIZATIONS 2020
Acknowledgments
Producer
These Guidelines have been produced by
the Life Cycle Initiative (hosted by UNEP)
and the Social LC Alliance
Co-Chairs of the project
Catherine Benoît Norris
Marzia Traverso
Matthias Finkbeiner
Supervision and support
Feng Wang
Llorenç Milà i Canals and Laura Williamson
UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
Editors, Authors and Steering Committee
Members
Catherine Benoît Norris – NewEarth B
Marzia Traverso – RTWH Aachen University
Sabrina Neugebauer – RTWH Aachen Uni-
versity
Elisabeth Ekener – KTH Royal institute of
Technology
Thomas Schaubroeck – Luxembourg Insti-
tute of Science and Technology
Sara Russo Garrido – CIRAIG
Markus Berger – TU Berlin
Sonia Valdivia – World Resources Forum
Association
Annekatrin Lehmann – TU Berlin
Matthias Finkbeiner – TU Berlin
Gabriella Arcese – Università degli Studi
Niccolò Cusano
Contributing Authors
Wouter Achten
Jonathan Barbeau-Baril
Breno Barros Telles Do Carmo
Philipp Bolt
Vikas Chandola
Blanca Corona Bellostas
Yashi Dadhish
Manuela D’Eusanio
Silvia Di Cesare
Claudia Di Noi
Franziska Eisfeldt
Jessica Hana
Bettina Heller
Diana Indrane
Maria Paula Jimenez Saenz
Arunima Malik
Lucia Mancini
Rose Mankaa
Bernard Mazijn
Luigia Petti
Solène Sureau
Carlos Tapia
Cesar Teran
Cassia Ugaya
Marie Vuaillat
Arne Wangel
Alessandra Zamagni
Stanley Zira
Advisory Committee
Sara Blackwell – SHIFT
Lina Azuero – Dell
Mark Goedkoop – Pré Social Roundtable
Peter Saling – BASF
Claudia Topalli – IDEXX Laboratories
Bettina Heller – UN 10YFP
Mathieu Lamolle – UN ITC
Lucia Mancini - EU JRC ISPRA
Bernard Mazjin – Ghent university
Sancia Dalley – Robert F Kennedy Human
Rights Foundation
Paul Vanegas – Universidad de Cuenca,
Ecuador
Pierre Mazeau – Électricité de France
Sanjeevan Bajaj, Director – Sukhbir Agro Ener-
gy Ltd. India
Jessica Hana, Director – PT Life Cycle In-
donesia
Matthew Watkins – WBCSD
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Design and lay-out
Élisabeth Benoît
Proofreading
Lindsey Roche
Photo credits (in order)
Front cover
Top: Dwijen Mahanta (Pexels)
Left: Jahidul Islam (Pixabay)
Right: Anja - cocoparisienne (Pixabay)
Back cover
Alexas-Fotos (Pixabay)
Report
Naeem Mayet (Pexels)
Sarathy Selvamani (Unsplash)
Quang Nguyen Vinh (Pexels)
Quang Nguyen Vinh (Pexels)
Thomas Gerlach (Pixabay)
Oğuzhan Karaca (Pexels)
Anja - cocoparisienne (Pixabay)
Jahidul Islam (Pixabay)
Quang Nguyen Vinh (Pexels)
Creative Commons CCO (Pixabay)
Public consultation participants
Adriana Abril, Argentina
Ilonka de Beer, The Netherlands
Monique Bennema, USA
Jaylton Bonacina de Araujo, Brazil
Fanny Cabrera, Ecuador
Francesc Castells, Spain
Andreas Ciroth, Germany
Henri Fraisse, France
Rosan Harmens, The Netherlands
Nils Heuer, Global
Nathalie Iofrida, Italy
Ismael Izquierdo, Ecuador
Acknowledgments (continued)
Ingrid Kaltenegger, Austria
Michael Kühnen, Germany
Sophie Laroche, France
Mathias Lindkvist, Sweden
Julia Martínez-Blanco, Spain
Claudia Pena, Chile
Philipp Preiss, France
Justin S. Richter, USA
Erwin M. Schau, Slovenia
Naomi Scott-Mearns, United Kingdom
Petchprakai Sirilertsuwan, France
Dolores Sucozhañay, Ecuador
Olubukola Tokede, Australia
Tatiana Vakhitova, United Kingdom
Paul Vanegas, Ecuador
Joost Vogtländer, The Netherlands
Henning Wigger, Germany
Marc-Andree Wolf, Germany
In 2009, UNEP’s Life Cycle Initiative launched the rst Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). Since then,
researchers and practitioners have used these Guidelines to assess the positive and negative social and socio-econo-
mic impacts of products over their lifecycle. In parallel, the practice of S-LCA has evolved from a small circle of acade-
mic practitioners to one that now includes stakeholders from industry, policy makers, and business.
This evolution from theory to practice requires having updated information and guidelines that do not need prior un-
derstanding of lifecycle approaches. It also means ensuring that the right tools are in the hands of those who can
inform the decision-making processes. These updated Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment full both these
objectives.
This 2020 edition also looks at how to link the social impacts of a product’s production and consumption to the larger
impacts associated with an organization’s influence across the life cycle of a product. Social organizational LCA (also
known as SO-LCA) strengthens S-LCA by providing an organizational perspective that guides many organizational
decisions. SO-LCA also complements Organizational LCA guidance, another tool developed by the Life Cycle Initiative.
The importance of social sustainability in moving towards sustainable development is undeniable. UNEP’s Life Cycle
Initiative has joined forces with the Social Life Cycle Alliance to deliver this publication as a practical guide to unders-
tand and improve the social sustainability of our consumption and production processes. Now, more than ever, social
sustainability, social inclusion and leaving no one behind must be critical parts of our thinking and efforts to build back
better and greener.
My thanks go to the authors, researchers, and stakeholders who have contributed their knowledge and expertise to this
publication, much of it given in kind. I trust it will encourage and increase attention by decision makers on the social
aspects of products and organizations.
Ligia Noronha
Director, Economy Division
United Nations Environment Programme
Foreword
89
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Executive summary 12
Reader’s guide 13
Preface 15
1. Introduction 16
1.1 References 19
2. What is social life cycle assessment? 20
2.1 Denition and structure of social life cycle assessment 20
2.2 Stakeholder categories, impact categories, and impact subcategories 22
2.3 Main denitions of core concepts 24
2.4 Where to start and the two main approaches in S-LCA 27
2.5 Positive impacts 29
2.5.1 Social handprinting 31
2.6 Uses of S-LCA 32
2.7 Linkages with international frameworks 33
2.8 Linkages with other corporate social responsibility tools 34
2.9 Implementation of S-LCA and SO-LCA 37
2.9.1 Path 1: Experience with social assessment at organizational level 38
2.9.2 Path 2: Experience with environmental life-cycle approaches 38
2.9.3 Path 3: Experience with product/organizational social life cycle approaches 38
2.10 References 39
3. Goal and scope denition 41
3.1 Goal denition 41
3.2 Scope denition 42
3.2.1 Dening the functional unit 43
Table of Contents
89
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
3.2.2 Dening the reference flow 45
3.2.3 Dening the product system 46
3.2.4 Identifying the system boundaries 48
3.2.5 Activity variable 48
3.2.6 Cut-off criteria 49
3.2.7 Limitations of data access 50
3.2.8 Stakeholder categorization & involvement 50
3.2.9 Impact assessment method and impact subcategories 52
3.2.10 Indicators, data type, and data collection strategies 53
3.3 References 54
4. Life cycle inventory 56
4.1 How to conduct the life cycle inventory analysis? 56
4.1.1 The basics of life cycle inventory in the context of S-LCA 56
4.1.2 Prioritizing data collection 59
4.1.3 Activity variables 63
4.1.4 Collecting data for impact assessment method 65
4.1.5 Determining data sources and social inventory indicators 66
4.1.6 Collecting generic and secondary data 68
4.1.7 Collecting site-specic and primary data 72
4.1.8 Rening the data collection strategy 73
4.2 Handling co-products 74
4.3 Data quality 75
4.3.1 Appropriate instruments, sources and collection methods 76
4.3.2 Data quality management 76
4.3.3 Challenges for generic and secondary data 78
4.3.4 Documentation of data quality 78
Table of Contents
10 11
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
4.4 References 79
5. Impact assessment 80
5.1 What is lcia in S-LCA? 80
5.1.1 Denition 80
5.1.2 Characteristics of the two main approaches in S-LCIA 81
5.2 Implementing reference scale approaches 81
5.2.1 General guidance on developing reference scales 82
5.2.2 Establishing performance indicators to prepare for data collection 88
5.2.3 Aggregation and weighting 89
5.2.4 Impact pathway approaches 92
5.2.5 General structure in IP S-LCIA 93
5.2.6 What is an impact pathway? 95
5.2.7 Pathways following the regression-based modelling approach 104
5.3 References 105
6. Interpretation 108
6.1 How to conduct interpretation 108
6.1.1 Completeness check 109
6.1.2 Consistency check 110
6.1.3 Uncertainty, sensitivity and data quality check 111
6.1.4 Materiality principle 113
6.1.5 Aggregation 113
6.2 Critical review 113
6.3 Conclusions, limitations, recommendations 114
6.4 References 115
Table of Contents
10 11
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
7. Social organizational life cycle assessment (SO-LCA) 116
7.1 How does SO-LCA relate to S-LCA? 116
7.2 Conceptual framework 117
7.2.1 Goal and scope 117
7.2.2 Life cycle inventory 118
7.2.3 Impact assessment 119
7.2.4 Interpretation 119
7.3 Limitations & further research needs 119
7.3.1 Distribution of impacts 120
7.3.2 Complex organizations 120
7.3.3 Social performance tracking 120
7.4 References 121
8. Communication 122
8.1 Principles for communicating social impacts 122
8.2 Internal communication 124
8.3 External communication: B2B 124
8.4 External communication: B2C 125
8.5 Communication on social performance – a possible pathway 127
8.6 References 127
9. Next: Outlook for the future 128
Annex - Glossary 130
References 137
Table of Contents
12 13
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Executive summary
The Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) of Products provide a roadmap and a body of knowledge to
help stakeholders in the assessment of social and socio-economic impacts of products’ life cycles, their related value
chains and organizations.
Awareness about value chain social issues such as child labor used for harvesting cotton, unpaid wages of factory
workers and safety issues when using a product, raises the question of what the extent of product and organization so-
cial impacts are and how they can be improved. To answer this question, the S-LCA Guidelines present a methodology
to assess the social impact of products using a life cycle perspective. This methodology builds on the more commonly
known Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which focuses on environmental impacts.
A key and unique feature of S-LCA, within the landscape of social assessment methodologies, is that a life cycle per-
spective is used to assess the social impacts of a product or organization. This means looking not only at the factory
or process that produces the product, e.g. flour milling, but also at the social impacts related to all the associated pro-
cesses, both upstream and downstream, e.g. grain production, transport and nal distribution of the flour.
In the past decade since the original S-LCA Guidelines were published, S-LCA has gained in maturity and established
itself as a standalone methodology. These 2020 Guidelines provide additional information and consensus-based guid-
ance for each step of the S-LCA, explaining the strengths and challenges of different approaches to address a varied
set of questions related to the social sustainability of products and organizations. For instance, to support measuring
and assessing progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
The expanded framework builds on the previous edition to cover new methodological and practical developments such
as social organizational LCA (SO-LCA) as well as the renements and additions of social impact subcategories that
have emerged in the literature and that are now integrated in the guidance.
12 13
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Reader’s guide
In this Reader’s Guide, we present the S-LCA method concisely to enable the readers to quickly grasp S-LCA’s scope
and characteristics. References direct readers to the sections in the Guidelines where each topic is discussed in more
detail. To illustrate the process of a S-LCA, we will use the example of a garment brand named Shirtz which has re-
quested an S-LCA of their latest product: a pack of white cotton T-shirts.
To get started, see Chapter 2 “What is Social Life Cycle Assessment?”, which provides a general explanation of the
methodological approach, before going deeper into each step in the subsequent chapters.
Context: garment brand named Shirtz produces T-shirts. Shirtz has requested an S-LCA of their latest product: a pack
of white cotton T-shirts.
Step One: Specify the question(s) to be answered by the Social LCA
Examples are:
What are the social hotspots of the T-shirts’ life cycle?
What are the total social impacts associated with the value chain of the company Shirtz?
If we switch to an alternative cotton producer or use a different ber, what would be the effects on social im-
pacts?
Along with specifying these research questions or goals, the affected stakeholders are also identied, e.g. the workers,
the consumers, etc. Based on this information, it is determined which processes will be analyzed by setting system
boundaries for a specied quantity, e.g. 1 T-shirt. The type of the impact assessment method (whether to consider
potential impacts and/or cause-effect chains) will also be selected. For example, if the question is “What are the social
impacts on workers of a T-shirt supply chain up to the factory gate?”, upstream processes to be considered will include
cotton production, ginning, spinning, knitting, dying, cut and sew and transportation. The impact on workers and the
communities will be assessed at each upstream process. The impact assessment method to be used will be Reference
Scale. See Chapter 3 “Goal and Scope Denition”.
Step Two: Collect inventory data
In the case of environmental impacts, the inventory consists in building the product system and compiling emissions
data (e.g. greenhouse gases such as methane) as well as data about resources used by each and every process. For
S-LCA, data is needed to describe social impacts within the product system.
For example, in the case of T-shirts, working conditions of the people producing the T-shirts need to be considered,
such as, their working hours, wage, and any potential for accidents at the factory. Conditions in the local community
surrounding the T-shirt factory should also be considered such as, local employment at the factory, access to drinking
water, and safe and healthy living conditions. Similarly, data on the social conditions of cotton production, ginning, spin-
ning, knitting and dyeing should also be collected. Databases and related software should also be used to complement
data collected on site to ensure that all social impacts related to the product system (which often consists of thou-
sands of processes) are captured. This secondary data may only be available at a country or sector-level, e.g. human
rights violation estimates are generally available at the country and/or sector level, which serves as an approximation
of potential risks. Overall, data collection is often a tedious part of an S-LCA, but data consistency and representative-
ness are important to ensure robust S-LCA results. See Chapter 4 “Life Cycle Inventory”.
Step Three: Translate collected data and information into a resulting social impact, or a risk for a social impact
Two main approaches can be applied here. In the rst approach, reference scale (RS), impact indicators can be
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
14
benchmarked to provide social hotspots or social performance results. An example of a reference scale is:
+2 Ideal performance; a positive output achieved and reported – this could be that a wage at living wage level or higher
is being paid.
+1 Progress beyond compliance is made and monitored – this could be that a wage higher than the legal minimum
wage is being paid and programs are in place to improve the remuneration package.
0 Compliance with local laws and/or aligned with international standards – a minimum wage is paid.
-1 Non-compliant situation, but actions to improve have been taken – a wage below the legal minimum wage is some-
times paid because of deductions, a program is in place to make changes.
-2 No data, or Non-compliant situation; no action taken1, wages paid are below the legal minimum wage.
Note that living wages tend to be much higher than the legal minimum wages established in countries.
The second approach, Impact Pathway or IP, attempts to describe the actual cause-effect chain. For example, lower
future well-being related to poor nutrition because of wages unpaid. For both approaches, the impacts are assessed
along the value chain and may be aggregated, with some weighting. See Chapter 5 “Impact Assessment”.
Step Four: Interpret results and indicate hotspots and areas for improvement
At this step, for example in terms of labor, Shirtz will know the share of its entire life cycle worker hours that possesses
a range of social attributes, such as (e.g. potential for fair wages, risk of hazardous conditions, etc.).
In order to gain further insights and verify a hotspot for low wages, it could be decided to collect site-specic data in-
stead of using secondary data from databases or the literature in the inventory. This could be followed by adopting a
living wage policy. As S-LCA is an iterative process, the impact of the change (potential handprint) could be captured in
a subsequent iteration of the study. See Chapter 6 “Interpretation.
Alternative: Consider the social impact of a complete organization
Shirtz, like many organizations, may produce more than one type of product. In addition, there are other impacts oc-
curring on-site that may not be easily related to a specic product or set of products. To analyze the impact of an
organization’s value chain, including its portfolio of products and infrastructure, Social Organizational LCA (SO-LCA)
should be applied. SO-LCA can help an organization to improve its social performance as decisions are often made at
the company level, such as the selection and development of suppliers. See Chapter 7 “SO-LCA”.
Step Five: Communicate results
While results are rst communicated internally to address issues of concerns, in a next step, Shirtz may want to com-
municate its S-LCA results with its stakeholders. Attention should be payed to relevance, reliability, and transparency.
Shirtz or its products may qualify for specic labels which can be communicated via its advertising. A tag could also
be attached to the T-shirt with a link to a website where an explanation of the social performance would be available in
layman terms for the public as well as a detailed report for stakeholders. See Chapter 8 “Communication”.
Step Six: Consider limitations and future research
In closing, users should be aware of the limitations inherent to any type of sustainability assessment, including S-LCA.
With increased application of Social LCA, collaborations between society, industry and scientists will be crucial. See
Chapter 9 “Next: Outlook for the Future”.
1 Reference scale from PSM Roundtable, 2018
Preface
In 2009, the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative published a rst set of Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment
(S-LCA). These Guidelines were said to provide a map, a skeleton, and a flashlight to guide stakeholders engaging in
the assessment of positive and negative social and socio-economic impacts of the life cycle of products.
The practice of S-LCA has evolved tremendously since then, as well as its context. From a small circle of practitioners,
mostly in the academic sphere, the eld has grown to include many stakeholders, including companies, consultants,
academics, and policymakers. However, far from being completed, the growth of this eld is still at the early stage.
Revising the Guidelines is a pivotal exercise, necessary to make the method more approachable to the new interest it
receives.
In 2009, the key audience of the Guidelines was without question the experts of Environmental Life Cycle Assessment
(E-LCA). The purpose of the document was to explain how the method of E-LCA could be adapted to apply to the as-
sessment of social and socio-economic impacts.
Primary users and audiences of S-LCA are frequently human rights and sustainability managers or experts, or social
scientists and policymakers without a conceptual understanding of E-LCA. These new Guidelines offer, therefore, a
practical reference for anyone wanting to become familiar with and start applying the method.
This document covers the four phases of an S-LCA: setting the Goal and Scope of a study (Goal and Scope), collecting
data (Inventory), assessing the risks and potential impacts (Impact Assessment) and interpreting results (Interpreta-
tion). In addition, the new Guidelines provide insights on how to apply Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment
(SO-LCA), a method to study the impacts of an organization’s life cycle.
Because different S-LCA methods have diverging purposes and applications, these Guidelines do not dictate one path
over another but rather explain the strengths and challenges of different approaches to solve multiple questions.
Each sections of the revised Guidelines dene the main steps, provide examples and direct to additional resources and
references, providing users with a rened framework and detailed guidance.
The new Guidelines should quickly become a helpful reference in new explorations or expert application of S-LCA
methods.
The Steering Committee
16 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
1. Introduction
The ultimate goal of sustainable development is to achieve and sustain human well-being, while considering the needs
of current and future generations. Over the past decades, a range of actors from the academic, private, and public
sector spheres have developed tools, metrics, policy instruments, and strategies in order to integrate sustainable de-
velopment into decision-making.
In the eld of product assessment, some methodologies and tools have been developed to support policies and strat-
egies relating to all pillars of sustainable development. When considering products, services and organizations’ sus-
tainability, a life cycle perspective (from extraction of raw material to end of life) brings powerful insights. This includes
highlighting potential transfer of impacts among impact types, steps of the life cycle or stakeholder groups. It aims to
provide increased knowledge on the 3Ps - three-pillar approach of sustainable development: People, Planet, and Prot.
S-LCA is one of three methodologies that have been developed to assess the sustainability of the three Pillars of orga-
nizations, products and services, focusing on the People Pillar. E-LCA provides information on the effect on the Planet,
looking at the potential impacts on the natural environment of economic activities and, to some extent, impacts on
human health and natural resources. Life Cycle Costing (LCC) focuses primarily on the direct and indirect costs and
benets from economic activities for Prot. This distinction between pillars and life cycle methods, encompasses some
overlaps (e.g. E-LCA commonly also covers the impact on human health which relates to the People-pillar and is also
covered by S-LCA), but it is a rough common classication that provides clarity.
The application of the three methodologies to assess sustainability performance leads to a Life Cycle Sustainability
Assessment (LCSA). Although some more integrated alternative approaches for sustainability and LCSA have been de-
veloped (Guinée et al., 2011; Schaubroeck and Rugani, 2017), combining E-LCA, LCC and S-LCA based on the three-pil-
lar sustainability concept is not easy to implement in practice due to the above mentioned overlapping issues when
interpreting results.
The rst Guidelines for S-LCA were published by the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative in 2009. Since then, the relevance
of S-LCA has increased, and a plethora of initiatives promoting value chain due diligence has continuously positioned
social issues as a central concern, for private and public sector actors alike. According to the Organisation for Econom-
ic Cooperation and Development (OECD), “Due diligence” is the process through which organizations identify, consider
and address the potential environmental and social impacts and risks relating to concerned activities as an integral
part of their decision-making and risk management systems. In this context, LCSA and S-LCA can be regarded as tools
17
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
for exercising due diligence in life cycle management (Mazijn and Revéret, 2015).
In particular, two pivotal developments have underscored the relevance in researching and applying methodologies
that help to better understand and reflect upon the negative and positive social impacts of value chains. One of them
is the launching of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 20152, dening goals to ad-
dress the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation,
prosperity, and peace and justice” (UN, 2015). The seventeen SDGs and their 169 targets have been internationally
accepted by governments, industries and organizations and now represent the main reference for efforts geared to-
wards sustainable development. Fourteen of the seventeen goals concern social impacts, most of which have obvious
connections with the S-LCA framework.
Another crucial development is a policy instrument endorsed in 2011 by the United Nations Human Rights Council: The
Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (United Nations, 2011). These Principles clarify the duty of govern-
ments and businesses towards human rights. The Guiding Principles positioned Human Rights Due Diligence as the
most important process a company can apply to demonstrate its commitment and respect towards human rights as-
sociated with its activities, relationships or value chains across the globe. Human Rights Due Diligence is a reasonable
investigation of the human rights risks related to business operations, value chains and other relationships.
In the wake of the Guiding Principles, a growing number of countries have passed laws that integrate its recommenda-
tion on Human Rights Due Diligence, such as France, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
Furthermore, the EU non-nancial reporting directive seeks to foster human rights accountability within global value
chains (Directive 2014/95/EU). In North America, the U.S. has enacted the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement
Act (H.R. 644), with Section 910 having been fortied to empower restrictions on the import of goods produced with
forced labor.
This wave of legislations related to the Guiding Principles coupled with strong corporate support for the Sustainable
Development Goals are now incentivizing companies to establish a process to learn about, prioritize and act upon their
value chain social risks. In this context, S-LCA provides an assessment method that can be applied for the purpose of
Human Rights Due Diligence and to highlight positive impacts associated with business activities.
Historical background
The discussion on how to deal with social and socio-economic criteria in E-LCA already started more than 25 years
ago. In 1993, a SETAC Report: “Conceptual Framework for Life Cycle Impact Assessment” (Fava et al., 1993) proposed
a social welfare impact category. Research on this topic was then initiated and various teams globally developed and
started publishing methods and case studies. By the end of 2003, the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative recognized the
need for a Task Force on the integration of social criteria into LCA, which actively explored approaches for Social LCA.
The rst Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment were published in 2009 (UNEP/SETAC, 2009). Those Guidelines
have represented the main reference for S-LCA for a decade. They were complemented by the publication of Method-
ological Sheets for Social Life Cycle Assessment in 2013 (Benoît et al., 2013). The Methodological Sheets presented
each impact subcategory in a practical way, provided their denition, introduced the political context, dened generic
and specic indicators, and gave database sources for collecting both types of indicators.
Since 2009, experiences, case studies and publications in S-LCA have increased, contributing to the numerous refer-
ence documents published on this topic. One example is the Handbook for Product Social Impact Assessment (PSIA),
which was published in its complete form (Ver.3) in 2016 by the Roundtable of Product Social Metrics3 and updated in
2018 (Fontes, 2016; Goedkoop et al., 2018). The Handbook builds on the UNEP 2009 S-LCA Guidelines and the Meth-
2 https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
3 The Roundtable is a group of companies moderated by PRé Sustainability which aims to develop a feasible methodology to guide compa-
nies in assessing social impacts
18 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
odological Sheets to present a method with a specic set of indicators that can be applied to assess social impacts at
the product level.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) published in 2016 a reference document specif-
ic to the assessment of social impacts for the chemical sector: The Social Life Cycle Metrics for Chemical Products
(WBCSD, 2016). This initiative used the Roundtable PSIA and the UNEP Guidelines as a starting point and focused on
the development of a qualitative methodology. One of the primary goals was to identify social indicators and aspects
that are especially meaningful for the chemical sector, for instance the potential impact on consumers´ health and
safety.
More recently, the increased interest for S-LCA in the scientic community is demonstrated by the rising number of
published papers, conferences and conference sessions, scientic journals publishing on the subject, and inclusion in
special issues on the subject in journals. For example, in a special issue on the topic published in 2018 in The Inter-
national Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (Macombe et al., 2018), about 30 papers were presented. In addition, it is
relevant to mention the rst white paper on the topic published by UN Environment Programme as an output of the
Consumer Information Programme of the One Planet network ‘Shout it Out: Communicating Products’ Social Impacts’
(UNEP, 2018). This report presents the state of the art in measurement of social impacts and has compiled and pre-
sented relevant examples of social impact communication related to products, highlighted best practices, and made
suggestions for further developments on this topic.
Process of development
The objectives of the Guidelines revision included from the start:
Expanding the audience;
Focusing on capability development;
Capturing methodological developments;
Recognizing a plurality of established approaches;
Positioning S-LCA in the current context;
Developing areas where minimum guidance prevailed;
Integrating SO-LCA to extend the focus from products to organization.
The development of the updated Guidelines has been accomplished by bringing together a large group of practitioners,
academics, and members of the private sector. Working groups developed the rst version of chapters which were
then revised and compiled by the steering committee. We organized two expert meetings (in August 2018 in Pescara,
Italy and in April 2019 in Paris, France) where drafts were discussed and amended. Practitioners and experts were also
surveyed to gather perspectives on the list of impact subcategory. In addition, experts provided line by line comments
which were considered and integrated in the draft whenever possible. An international public consultation was held in
the spring of 2020 and results have also been brought into the nal draft. In parallel, these Guidelines are being piloted
and the experiences will be shared in a companion document. The Methodological Sheets have also been updated
during the revision process and are available as another supporting reference.
In the following chapters, a step-by-step description of S-LCA will be provided to guide LCA practitioners and new us-
ers in their implementation of the technique to a product or organization life cycle.
19
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
1.1 REFERENCES
Benoît, C., Traverso, M., Valdivia, S., Vickery-Niederman, G., Franze, J., Azuero, L., Ciroth, A., Mazijn, B., Aulisio, D., 2013.
The Methodological Sheets for Sub-categories in Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA).
Directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2014 amending Directive 2013/34/
EU as regards disclosure of non-nancial and diversity information by certain large undertakings and groups Text with
EEA relevance
Fava, J., Consoli, F., Denison, R., Dickson, K., Mohin, T., Vigon, B. (Eds.), 1993. Conceptual Framework for Life-Cycle Im-
pact Assessment. SETAC.
Fontes, J., 2016. Handbook for Product Social Impact Assessment. 153. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.23821.74720
Goedkoop, M.J., Indrane, D.., de Beer, I.., 2018. Handbook for Product Social Impact Assessment-2018. Amersfoort.
Guinée, J.B., Heijungs, R., Huppes, G., Zamagni, A., Masoni, P., Buonamici, R., Ekvall, T., Rydberg, T., 2011. Life Cycle As-
sessment: Past, Present, and Future. Environ. Sci. Technol. 45, 90–96
Macombe, C., Zamagni, A. & Traverso, M., 2018. Preface. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 23, 387–393. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11367-017-1419-3
Mazijn, B., Revéret, J.-P., 2015. Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: A Tool for Exercising Due Diligence in Life Cycle
Management, in: Sonnemann, G., Margni, M. (Eds.), Life Cycle Management, LCA Compendium – The Complete World
of Life Cycle Assessment. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 51–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7221-1_5
Schaubroeck, T., Rugani, B., 2017. A Revision of What Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment Should Entail: Towards
Modeling the Net Impact on Human Well-Being. J. Ind. Ecol. 21, 1464–1477
UN, 2011. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. New York and Geneva.
UNEP, 2018. Shout it Out: Communicating Products’ Social Impacts. Paris.
UNEP/SETAC, 2009. Benoît, C., Mazijn, B. (Eds.), 2009. Guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products. UNEP/
SETAC Life Cycle Initiative.
WBCSD, 2016. Social Life Cycle Metrics for Chemical Products. Geneva
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
20 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment
2. What is social life cycle assessment?
2.1 DEFINITION AND STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) is a methodology to assess the social impacts of products and services4 across
their life cycle (e.g. from extraction of raw material to the end-of-life phase, e.g. disposal). See Table 1. It offers a sys-
tematic assessment framework that combines quantitative as well as qualitative data. S-LCA provides information
on social and socio-economic aspects for decision-making, in the prospect to improve the social performance of an
organization5 and ultimately the well-being of stakeholders. In this Section 2.1 we succinctly present the structure of
S-LCA and its main aspects which will then be further detailed in subsequent sections.
S-LCA rests upon a combination of methods, models, and data. S-LCA methods can be found in reference documents
like this one and various journal articles. Models are used to provide a representation of the product life cycles/systems
under study; several types of models can be used, e.g. a process model. Data is the information about the product life
cycle/system and its potential impacts that enables the assessment to take place. Software tools can be used to apply
methods, access generic data, and deliver summary reports with graphical layouts of the information processed.
S-LCA employs some of the modeling capabilities and systematic assessment processes of Environmental Life Cycle
Assessment (E-LCA) combined with social sciences methods. The impact categories and subcategories assessed in
S-LCA are those that may directly affect stakeholders positively or negatively during the life cycle of a product. They are
largely dened by the international community through its policy frameworks and other social responsibility references,
and in respect to the best available science.
S-LCA can either be applied on its own or in combination with E-LCA and/or Life Cycle Costing (LCC). It differs from
other social impact assessment techniques by its object: products or services and their life cycle; by its scope: the
entire life cycle; and its systematic nature: systematic process of collecting and reporting about social impacts and
benets across the life cycle.
4 The term ‘products’ will be used as a short form for ‘products, services’ hereafter, for the sake of simplicity
5 Note: Whenever we refer to organizations or companies, we implicitly refer to public and private bodies. We use both terms synony-
mously.
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
In recent years, Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (SO-LCA) methodology has been developed. It builds on
S-LCA methodology, but its object of study differs: SO-LCA focuses on organizations, and their impacts. Guidance on
SO-LCA is presented in these guidelines in Chapter 7 and Section 2.9.
Table 1: Scope, impact types and object of S-LCA.
System scope Impact types Object of study
Full Life cycle of products and services
(cradle-to-grave; from resource extrac-
tion to end-of-life).
Supply chain of the product (cradle-to-
gate; exclude use phase and end-of-
life).
Parts of the Life Cycle (gate-to-gate or
gate-to-grave).
Potential or actual Social and So-
cio-economic impacts
(depending on its application).
Products or services.
S-LCA is in large part based on the ISO 14040 framework for E-LCA. Therefore, it includes four phases: Goal and Scope,
(Social) Life Cycle Inventory (S-LCI), (Social) Life Cycle Impact Assessment (S-LCIA) and Interpretation. It is an iterative
methodology, which means that we can improve the assessment over time, going through several assessment loops
and moving from more generic/potential results to more site- and case-specic ones. These four phases are explained
in detail in their respective sections of these guidelines.
Figure 1: The four iterative phases of S-LCA (adapted from Benoît Norris, 2012). The arrows represent connections
between all phases.
Goal and scope
Social life cycle
impact assessment
Social life cycle
inventory
Interpretation
21
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment
22 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
2.2 STAKEHOLDER CATEGORIES, IMPACT CATEGORIES, AND IMPACT SUBCATEGORIES
The S-LCA framework calls upon a stakeholder approach where the potential impacts on different stakeholder cate-
gories are considered. This mirrors the fact that social sustainability is about identifying and managing impacts, both
positive and negative, on people (stakeholders). Social impacts are classied by stakeholder categories to assist with
the operationalization and to ensure the comprehensiveness of the framework.
The stakeholder categories are at the basis of an S-LCA assessment because they are the items on which the justi-
cation of inclusion or exclusion in the scope needs to be provided. Linked to the stakeholder categories, are the impact
subcategories that comprise socially signicant themes or attributes. These subcategories are assessed by the use
of impact indicators, of which inventory indicators link directly with the inventory of the product life cycle. See Figure
4 for an example. Several indicators may be used to assess each of the subcategories. These indicators may vary
depending on the context of the study. The purpose of the further classication of impact subcategories into bigger
groups of impact categories, besides stakeholder categories, is to logically group them and to support further Impact
Assessment and Interpretation.
Figure 2: Assessment system from categories to inventory data. Adapted from Benoît et al., 2007. Connections are
exemplary and not exhaustive.
Concerning stakeholder categories, the quality of an organization’s relationships and engagement with its stakeholders
is critical for its social performance. Directly or indirectly, organizations affect what happens to the stakeholders, and it
is important to manage these social impacts proactively. The stakeholder categories that are considered in the S-LCA
Guidelines, based on discussions among involved experts, are: Workers, Local communities, Value chain actors (e.g.
suppliers), Consumers, Children, and Society. Alternative classications are possible (e.g. per country) and allowed but
should be explained and argued. See Section 3.2.8 on this matter. However, using the classication envisioned here, will
facilitate a straightforward comparison with other studies that follow the Guidelines.
Stakeholder
categories
Impact
categories Subcategories Inventory
indicators Inventory data
Workers
Local
community
Society
Consumers
Value chain
actors
Human rights
Working
conditions
Health and
safety
Cultural
heritage
Governance
Socio-economic
repercussions
23
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
As previously mentioned, these potential impacts can be classied into a number of categories, depending on the is-
sues of concern that are potentially affected. Common impact categories that can be considered are Human Rights,
Working Conditions, Cultural Heritage, Governance, and Socio-economic repercussions. Other categories have been
dened to support impact assessment and as a logical grouping of subcategories such as Education, Fair salary,
Human health, etc. For example, Fair salary and Hours of work are subcategories of the impact category Working con-
ditions (NOTE: The list of impact categories only serve as examples and shall not be seen as exhaustive. Additional
impact categories can be dened - for further information see Chapter 5).
Table 2: List of stakeholder categories and impact subcategories.
Stakeholder
categories Worker Local community
Value chain
actors
(not including
consumers)
Consumer Society Children
Subcatego-
ries
1. Freedom of
association
and collective
barganing
2. Child lbor
3. Fair salary
4. Working
hours
5. Forced
labor
6. Equal opportu-
nities / discri-
mination
7. Health and
safety
8. Social bene-
ts / social
security
9. Employment
rela-
tionship
10. Sexual haras-
sment
11. Smallholders
including
farmers
1. Access to
material re-
sources
2. Access to
immaterial
resources
3. Delocalization
and migra-
tion
4. Cultural heri-
tage
5. Safe and
healthy living
conditions
6. Respect of
indigenous
rights
7. Community en-
gagement
8. Local employ-
ment
9. Secure living
conditions
1. Fair competi-
tion
2. Promoting so-
cial responsi-
bility
3. Supplier rela-
tionships
4. Respect of
intellectual
property
rights
5. Wealth distri-
bution
1. Health and
safety
2. Feedback
mecha-
nism
3. Consumer
privacy
4. Transparen-
cy
5. End-of-life res-
ponsibility
1. Public com-
mitments to
sustainability
issues
2. Contribution to
economic de-
velopment
3. Prevention
and mitigation
of armed
conflicts
4. Technology de-
velopment
5. Corruption
6. Ethical
treatment of
animals
7. Poverty allevia-
tion
1. Education
provided in the
local commu-
nity
2. Health issues
for children as
consumers
3. Children
concerns
regarding
marketing
practices
The following impact subcategories have been newly introduced: Employment relationship, Sexual harassment, Small-
holders including farmers, Wealth distribution, Ethical treatment of animals, Poverty alleviation, Education provided in
the local community, Health issues for children as consumers, Children concerns regarding marketing practices.
The S-LCA framework, and related stakeholder and impact categories, have obvious connections to the seventeen
SDGs that have been internationally accepted by governments, industries, and organizations. The gure below draws
these connections.
24 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Freedom of association
Child labor | Forced labor
Working hours
Social benets/security
Local employment | Fair salary
Contributions to economic development
Employment relationship
Fair competition | Supplier relationships
Promoting social responsibility
Respect for intellectual property rights
Feedback mechanism | Transparency
Consumer privacy | End of life responsibility
Children concerns regarding marketing
practices
Ethical treatment of animals
Fair salary
Poverty alleviaiton
Access to material resources
Health and safety (W & C)
Human health issues
Safe healthy living
Health issues for children as consumers
Access to immaterial resources
Education provided to the local
community
Equal oportunity / discrimination
Sexual harassment
Access to material resources
Access to material resources
Access to material resources
Technology development
Indigenous rights
Delocalization & migration
Equal opportunity / discrimination
Wealth distribution
Cultural heritage
Community engagement
Capacity building
Legal system corruption
Prevention and mitigation of armed
conflicts
Delocalization and migration
Access to immaterial resources
Secure living conditions
Public commitment to sustainability
issues
Figure 3: The S-LCA impact subcategories linked to the 17 SDGs. Most prominent ones are presented.
2.3 MAIN DEFINITIONS OF CORE CONCEPTS
This section denes the main terms and describes the different types of nal outputs of an S-LCA. See Figure 4 for an
overview and an example. As a methodology, S-LCA mainly focuses on assessing potential social impacts. However,
some S-LCA studies also assess actual social impacts.
Potential social impact is understood as the likely presence of a social impact, resulting from the activities/behaviors
of organizations linked to the life cycle of the product or service and from the use of the product itself. They are normally
the result of an impact assessment step (for further information see Chapter 5).
25
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Potential social impacts are often based on more than one (inventory) indicator (e.g. a social risk) and can contain
aspects of causal relations, when they are calculated against the background of the Impact Pathway (IP) approach.
In turn, actual social impacts are understood as the positive or negative consequences ensuing from the causal rela-
tionship between an activity and an aspect relating to human well-being, as covered by impact subcategories.
Figure 4: Overview of different outputs of Social LCA from a ctional simplied case study on a piece of clothing for
which only one impact pathway is presented.
Therefore, actual social impacts are the changes that affect stakeholders as a result of an activity. Their assessment is
based on observed data. For social impact along the cause-effect chain, the impact can be assessed midway through
the cause-effect chain (midpoint) or at the end of the cause-effect chain (endpoint). See examples in Figure 4.
Life cycle impact assessment (e.g. Stakeholder category: Worker, Impact subcategory: Child labor
Example of S-LCA outcomes of a piece of clothing (simplified fictional example)
0.5 kg Cotton
1 piece of clothing
Usage &
disposal
Clothing
fabrication
Background
processes
Education
performance
Cotton
production
(Country X)
Job market /
economic
system
Education
system
schedule
INVENTORY
INDICATOR:
Child Labor-
Working time
(e.g. 1 hour)
Education
taken
(e.g. 2 hours
per week)
Obtained
education
(e.g. 0 number
of degree)
Prosperity / income
(e.g. $10 000
per year)
MIDPOINT IMPACTS: impacts along cause-effect chains
ENDPOINT IMPACT
at end of
cause-effect chain
on area(s) of
protection:
WELL-BEING
SOCIAL FOOTPRINT: End result of the S-LCA study overall or by impact category or subcategory (e.g. high probability of child
labor or number of educational degrees obtained, etc.)
SOCIAL HANDPRINT: Results of changes to business as usual that create relative positive outcome or impacts (e.g. the drop
in child labor if better practices are implemented). It is not a variable of a system as such but of a change of that system!
MATERIALITY ASSESSMENT: Any type of information, date or, outcome that is of relevance and may influence the conclusion
(e.g. information that cotton is produced in Country X where child labor is frequent)
SOCIAL HOTSPOT: Location and/or activity in the life cycle where a social issue (as impact) and/or social risk is likely to
occur (e.g. cotton production in Country X)
SOCIAL RISK: Social topic for which an adverse impact is probable; the probability could also be quantified (e.g. child labor is
a social risk, with high probability, since cotton production takes place in Country X where probability for child labor is
generally high)
SOCIAL IMPACT: Effect on stakeholder (examples of indicator amounts are shown below between brackets)
SOCIAL PERFORMANCE: Output
compared to a known standard,
often expressed as a score (some
examples are shown to the right)
A
B
A - Social risk level
No risk
0
-2
-5
Low to medium risk
High to very high risk
B - Midpoint level
High (> $30 000)
+1
0
-1
Minimum wage (> $15 000)
Lower than minimum wage
Life cycle inventory
26 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
BOX 1: DELINEATION OF ACTUAL SOCIAL IMPACTS AND POTENTIAL SOCIAL IMPACTS
A study can only be said to assess actual social impacts if these are assessed with observed and veried pri-
mary specic data collected directly from stakeholders. Proxy indicators may not be used and the study may
not be predictive in nature. It is important to use the term potential social impacts whenever these conditions
are not met6 or note at the beginning of the communication how the term social impact is used (actual or po-
tential).
As further explained in Chapter 5, some impact assessment methods in S-LCA can focus on evaluating potential social
impacts and may do so through the assessment of social risks. Social risk7 is a topic for which there is a probability
of adverse social effects on stakeholders through an organization’s activities or business relationships. There can also
be an assessment of the extent of the risk, e.g. low or high via a referencing step. Social risks are usually measured at
country, sector, or company level. They are flags for potential social impacts.
A social hotspot is a location and/or activity in the life cycle where a social issue (as impact) and/or social risk is likely
to occur. It is usually linked to life cycle stages or processes. It needs to contribute signicantly to the impact (overall,
by impact category, or subcategory). In other words, social hotspots are unit processes located in a region where a
problem, a risk, or an opportunity may occur in relation to a social issue that is considered to be threatening social
well-being or that may contribute to its further development.
Social performance refers to the principles, practices, and outcomes of businesses’ relationships with people, organi-
zations, institutions, communities, and societies in terms of the deliberate actions of businesses toward these stake-
holders as well as the unintended externalities of business activity measured against a known standard (Wood, 2016).
Commonly, social performance is measured at the inventory indicator level.8
A social footprint refers to the end result of an S-LCA study, in terms of adverse effects, overall or by impact category/
subcategory (e.g. The total medium risk hours equivalent for labor rights and decent work by purchase category supply
chain).
Social handprints are the results of changes to business as usual that create positive outcomes or impacts. They
can be changes that reduce the social footprint or changes that create additional/unrelated positive social impacts.
Those changes can apply to the product or organization value chain or they may be beyond its scope. For example, a
company established a program with one of its suppliers which successfully prevented excessive working hours. The
result of this change can lower that company’s and its supplier’s social footprint on excessive working time but also, if
that supplier has other customers, it reduces the footprint of these customers as well which can be credited as a social
handprint to the company which has instigated the change. For more information on handprinting, see Section 2.5.1.
Salient social risks/impacts are social impact subcategories that account for a greater share of the overall risk/impact.
The UN Guiding Principles consider salient risks/impacts to be the ones that affect the most vulnerable stakeholders
and that cause irreparable damages. For example, forced labor in DC Congo for mineral extraction.
6 This distinction is not present in E-LCA in which “potential” mainly relates to the modelling and normalization of result, and thus all impacts
(including actual measured ones) are conventionally considered as potential in E-LCA. See ISO 14040, specically page 9 of that docu-
ment.
7 This interpretation of social risk relates only to probability and not to the scientic interpretation of a combination of probability and seve-
rity.
8 Social performance can also constitute the comparison of two social impacts or risks, e.g. at midpoint level as shown in Figure 4. If the
reference scenario has no social impact/risk, then the social performance evaluation is in practice the same as an impact assessment, but
conceptually these are different things.
27
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Materiality (principle) constitutes social matter (information, data, performance, impact, stakeholder) that is of such
relevance and importance that it could substantially influence the conclusions of the study, and the decisions and ac-
tions based on those conclusions. In the Interpretation section, we use this denition.
Materiality assessment is a process to select topics that are more important because of their impact on stakeholders
and/or on the business. The Global Reporting Initiative considers material issues to be the ones that reflect the orga-
nization’s signicant social impacts; or that substantively influence the assessments and decisions of stakeholders.
2.4 WHERE TO START AND THE TWO MAIN APPROACHES IN S-LCA
When planning to conduct an S-LCA a number of key decisions have to be made. Figure 5 illustrates the main decisions
by phase that a user needs to make at the onset of a study.
First, it has to be decided if the assessment will focus on a product or organization9. Then the specic product or or-
ganization needs to be identied. Next the goal(s) of the study needs to be thought out and described (product design,
Human Rights Due Diligence, etc.) as well as the scope (e.g. full life cycle? raw material to assembly (cradle to gate)?)
In addition, the type of impact assessment method to be used needs to be dened as well as the topics that will be the
focus of the assessment (stakeholder categories, impact subcategories). A data collection strategy needs to be devel-
oped. In particular, will the study use an S-LCA database and/or other sources of generic data (e.g. scientic articles)?
If so, will that be followed by the collection of site-specic data? Finally, the impact assessment method(s) selected
needs to be implemented and the results interpreted and communicated.
For a detailed description of each phase, we refer to each of the respective sections.
9 An S-LCA study could also focus on an industry, an individual consumer, a country, a product or investment portfolio, etc. Typically, users
study a product or an organization.
Figure 5: S-LCA decision tree.
Goal and scope Impact assessment
Site specific data?
Impact assessment
Impact assessment
Site specific data?
Interpretation
Interpretation /
communication
Interpretation /
communication
Inventory
Site specific data
Site specific data
Database / generic data
Database / generic data
Type 1 (Reference
Scale)
Which stakeholders?
What impact
categories?
Type 2 (Impact
Pathway)
Which stakeholders?
What impact
categories?
Goal and scope (e.g.
cradle to gate?,
design?)
Which product /
organization?
Product or
organization?
28 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
In S-LCA, there are two main families of impact assessment (or Social Life Cycle Impact Assessment – S-LCIA) ap-
proaches, the Reference Scale Approach (also known as Type I or Reference Scale S-LCIA) and the Impact Pathway
Approach (also known as Type II or Impact Pathway S-LCIA), each responding to different practitioner aims:
1. If the aim is to describe a product system with a focus on its social performance or social risk, use the Refer-
ence Scale Approach.
2. If the aim is to predict the consequences of the product system, with an emphasis on characterizing potential
social impacts, use the Impact Pathway Approach.
Reference scale S-LCIA assesses the social performance in the product system. More specically, it assesses the
social performance of activities of organizations in the product system (e.g. the practices implemented to manage
social impacts) based on specic reference points of expected activity (called performance reference points - PRPs).
Reference Scale Assessments rely on data, information, or judgement, and provide results that focus primarily on the
activities of companies in the product system and commonly consider their immediate evaluation (e.g. at inventory
indicator), i.e. no further propagation of effects. As such, Reference Scale approaches do not commonly in practice
establish a link between the activity and longer-term impacts. Rather, based on available information, they estimate the
likely magnitude and signicance of potential social impacts further down the line.
Impact pathway S-LCIA assesses potential or actual social impacts by using causal or correlation/regression-based
directional relationships between the product system/organizations’ activities and the resulting potential social im-
pacts – a process called “characterization”. Here, the analysis focuses on identifying and tracking the consequences
of activities possibly to longer-term implications along an impact pathway10. This approach is more in line with E-LCA,
where inputs (inventory or collected data, e.g. CO2 emissions) are linked with environmental problems (midpoint im-
pacts, e.g. global warming) and with further endpoint impacts, e.g. impact on human health. Table 3 summarizes the
two main families of social impact assessment approaches. One type is not guaranteed better than the other in prac-
tice because of restrictions (e.g. data availability).
Examples and further guidance for both approaches can be found in Sections 3.2.9 and 4.1.4 as well as Chapter 5.
10 An Impact Pathway describes the underlying social mechanisms with regard to specic social aspects or impacts. Social mechanisms in
S-LCA should be represented by social impact categories, category indicators and characterization models. Inventory results are there-
fore connected with impact categories (usually described as midpoint impact categories) and category endpoints (usually described by
endpoint impact categories) – for further information see Section 5.2.6
Table 3: Characteristics of S-LCIA approaches.
Characteristics Reference Scale Approach (Type I) Impact Pathway Approach (Type II)
Aim for users Assessment of the product system in
terms of its social performance or social
risk.
Assessment of consequences resulting from the
product system, with a focus on potential social
impacts.
Relation between activity and po-
tential social impacts a/b
Relation assumed. Analysis focuses
on activity and its direct evaluation,
more specically on their positioning
with regards to performance reference
points.
Cause-effect relations established through 1)
developed and justied characterization models
or 2) qualitative descriptions of existing relations
along an impact pathway.
29
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Characteristics Reference Scale Approach (Type I) Impact Pathway Approach (Type II)
Scope of analysis Variable coverage of life cycle stages.
Variable coverage of multiple stakeholder
categories and impact subcategories.
Variable coverage of life cycle stages. Variable
coverage of stakeholder and impact categories
and their dened impact pathway (e.g. human
health) – some studies focus on one impact
pathway, other on many.
Type results cSocial performance or risks, organized
along impact subcategories, stakeholder
categories, and/or life cycle steps typically
towards social well-being as the area of
protection.
Impact categories comparable to E-LCIA towards
dened Areas of Protection, such as well-being,
addressing one or more stakeholder categories
and/or life cycle steps.
Nature of indicators Qualitative, quantitative, or semi-quanti-
tative with more studies focusing on the
latter.
Qualitative or quantitative with more studies
focusing on the latter.
Object of the assessment dImmediate activities and their effects. Commonly short- and longer-term social conse-
quences characterization.
Existing S-LCA databases Databases that focus on but are not
limited to performance evaluation at risk
level (e.g. SHDB & PSILCAe).
Databases that focus on but are not limited to
single or multiple impact pathway issues (e.g.
Fair wage, EXIOBASE extension).
a adapted on the basis of Chhipi-Shrestha et al. (2015)
b adapted on the basis of Parent et al. (2010)
c as dened by in the UNEP/SETAC 2009 Guidelines
d adapted on the basis of Iofrida et al. (2018)
e SHDB refers to the Social Hotspots Database and PSILCA refers to the Product Social Impact Life Cycle Assessment
database
2.5 POSITIVE IMPACTS
Social impacts in product life cycles can be positive or negative; social conditions do not merely need to be protected
from deterioration, but also need to be actively improved. This is underscored by the 17 Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), where several of them, like Goal 1: No Poverty and Goal 2: Zero Hunger, address immediate needs for
improvement. Until now, most S-LCAs have focused mainly on negative impacts. Yet, in the list of subcategories, there
are some subcategories, such as Local employment, Technology development and Contribution to economic devel-
opment, which highlight that we also expect to consider positive social impacts. However, there are some challenges
linked to identifying, assessing, aggregating, and interpreting positive social impacts, which are comparable to the
challenges associated with (negative) social impacts in general.
Positive impacts are benets accruing through the product life cycle that make a positive contribution to the improve-
ment of human well-being, i.e. benecial impacts (as opposed to negative impacts, which are detrimental). They can
be assessed by looking at positive effects experienced by affected stakeholders or through potentially positive proxies,
such as positive social performance. An example of this would be the changes made by businesses that result in im-
provements of social conditions beyond mere minimal compliance conditions.
30 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Including positive social impacts in the assessment of product life cycles is needed for several reasons:
Product value chains/life cycles generate measurable positive impacts in the real world and the S-LCA frame-
work should reflect them accordingly;
Like negative impacts, positive impacts often create spill-over effects onto the production system and the so-
ciety (e.g. positively influence the lives of family or community members through ripple effects or improve the
performance of the workforce of a factory);
For businesses, the ability to recognize and report positive impacts creates an incentive to advance their social
sustainability strategy beyond legal compliance.
The inclusion of positive impacts should not compromise the continuous work on minimizing negative social condi-
tions, nor should positive impacts be accepted as a waiver for negative impacts (offsetting is not accepted nor foreseen
in S-LCA). Rather, the consideration of positive impacts is a prominent expansion of the current S-LCA framework and
makes the options to pursue sustainability more complete.
There are differing views on what should be counted as a positive impact. It can be that a positive impact has to go
beyond compliance with international law or reference points in international conventions and treaties or is an impact
that intrinsically improves social conditions. Guidance on how to assess positive impacts is provided in Chapter 5. In
general terms, there is an understanding that like negative social impacts, positive impacts are:
The outcome of an activity in the life cycle;
Related to how a particular activity is implemented or organized (e.g. a poor training will not create the positive
impact expected in terms of better performance such as improved health and safety record);
Context dependent;
Direct or indirect (e.g. direct job creation by the company that provides the product or indirect job creation for
road work required to provide the infrastructure needed to transport goods to the company);
Assessed at the indicator or impact/subcategory level and non-transferrable (i.e. a positive impact on wages
cannot make up for a negative impact on workers’ health and safety);
In addition, positive impacts are not the mere absence of negative impacts.
In practice we can differentiate three types of positive impacts:
1. Type APositive social performance going beyond business as usual;
2. Type BPositive social impact through presence (product or company existence);
3. Type CPositive social impact through product utility.
Multiple types can be occurring at the same time or be combined, e.g. positive impact through presence because an
organization is going beyond business as usual by building a factory and creating jobs at a site where they would nor-
mally not put one because of other reasons (e.g. less protable). Type C has rarely been assessed in S-LCA studies
and only recently some rst steps were taken to address this in E-LCA. Yet, this type C is specied here in order to
acknowledge its existence and that it is also an element of S-LCA. It relates to the concept of Functional Unit, which is
explained in Section 3.2.1. However, there are different views on whether it is relevant, warranted and fair to account
for the positive social impacts related to the product utility. The characterization of types A and B occurs during the
S-LCIA phase. The characterization of type C could be performed during S-LCIA or by the functional unit specication.
31
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Table 4: Approaches from literature by type.
Type of positive impact Type A Type B Type C
Description Often business as usual is at
compliance level but some-
times business as usual is
below or above this level. A
characteristic of the social
performance is that it is
often on a spectrum from
positive to the related inverse
negative performance. It also
includes best practices that
do not have an equivalent
negative performance, such
as employee volunteering
programs.
Product life cycles also
create positive social impacts
through their presence. These
tend to be impacts like em-
ployment, capacity building,
or improved infrastructure.
These impacts are either posi-
tive if the company is present
in a location, or there are no
impacts if the company is not
present. They are important to
consider when, for example,
location changes in the life cy-
cle are considered in order to
mitigate negative impacts.
Positive social impacts can
also result from the intrinsic
characteristics of the product
utility. For example, vacci-
nations or water treatment
plants are products aiming
at improving the well-being
of people. Impact of this
type, Type C – Positive social
impact through product utility,
happens in the use phase
of a product. However, this
should not cancel any adverse
impacts occurring in other
phases of the life cycle.
Literature Assessing companies’
performance on a scale from
non-compliant to best-prac-
tices and considering the
levels above compliance as
positive impacts (e.g. Goed-
koop et al., 2018).
Connecting economic activity
or economic development to
gains in public health (Norris,
2006).
Appreciating the positive
social value of a product,
for example of vaccines or a
water treatment plant
(Di Cesare et al., 2018; Küh-
nen and Hahn, 2019).
Assessing positive impacts
in terms of value created in
stakeholders’ favor (Di Cesare
et al., 2018; Kühnen and Hahn,
2019).
Assessing the positive im-
pacts from companies going
beyond business as usual and
addressing root causes (Be-
noît Norris et al., 2019).
By identifying which subcate-
gory of impacts has a positive
connotation (e.g. job creation)
(Ekener et al.,2018).
2.5.1 SOCIAL HANDPRINTING
A social handprinting framework can be applied to identify and measure business positive social impacts. It assesses
the impact of the changes being made by value chain actors (companies, suppliers) to improve their social impacts (re-
ducing their social footprint and growing their social handprint). Handprints are the changes that we bring, compared to
business as usual, which create positive impacts (reducing our footprint, namely, our own and that of others).
This framework starts with conducting a materiality assessment that includes an organization or product level social
hotspots analysis. By implementing an intervention found to have leverage over the improvement of social conditions
for an impact category, we bring about a change that can be considered as a Handprint. To measure the social hand-
print, we need to measure the outcome of the activity or change, and its impacts related to the impact category.
In order to consider handprints, we need to start with building an in-depth understanding of a company or product
social footprint. These initial steps consist of an industry or sector supply chain materiality and footprint assessment,
32 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
a company or product supply chain hotspots and baseline assessment, and baseline renement. Once the social foot-
print and social hotspots are known for the relevant impact subcategories, root causes have to be identied that pro-
vide the blueprint for the intervention/change. It is the measure of the outcome and impact of that change that goes
beyond business as usual that constitute the social handprint.
Figure 6: Handprint assessment process (Benoît Norris et al., 2019).
2.6 USES OF S-LCA
To summarize, S-LCA can be applied to calculate a social impact, social footprint, identify social hotspots (location or
activity with high risk/impact), social handprinting, or to assess the potential impacts of a policy or investment choice.
S-LCA can be applied for value chain social risk assessment, Human Rights Due Diligence, social handprinting, report-
ing, communication/labeling, as well as sustainable purchasing. S-LCA is a methodology that supports decision-mak-
ing in order to improve social conditions in life cycles and value chains worldwide.
In summary, S-LCA may be embedded in organizational processes to:
1. Support companies in building a targeted strategy for future development of social policies;
2. Support decision-making processes that involve a variety of stakeholders with different knowledge and back-
ground;
3. Manage social risk thanks to the identication of social hotspots;
4. Provide structure, credibility, and consistency to supply chain materiality assessment;
5. Support the disclosure of non-nancial information.
Materiality
Category
Baseline
Root cause
Change
Outcome
Impact
33
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
BOX 2: HOW SOCIAL LCA ADDS VALUE FOR STAKEHOLDERS?
S-LCA provides a consistent view of social hotspots along the life cycle or value-chain;
S-LCA ensures hotspots are understood rather than overlooked in product sustainability efforts;
S-LCA, performed together with E-LCA, helps to understand the intersection of social and environmental
issues, better aligning environmental sustainability efforts with social efforts;
S-LCA results help focus stakeholder surveys on certain aspects and add depth to sustainability reports.
2.7 LINKAGES WITH INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORKS
S-LCA’s framework has numerous linkages with international initiatives and frameworks, including the 2030 Agenda
and its SDGs, the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP), the Inter-
national Labour Organization (ILO) Decent Work Agenda, as well as the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human
Rights. More specically, S-LCA is uniquely positioned to support numerous objectives sought after by these initiatives.
Some examples and specications are given in the following paragraph.
S-LCA can be positioned as a tool that can support reaching SDG 12 on Responsible Consumption and Production. It
also has relevant connections with ten other SDGs: (1) No Poverty, (2) Zero Hunger, (3) Good Health and Well-Being,
(4) Quality Education, (5) Gender Equality, (6) Clean Water and Sanitation, (8) Decent Work and Economic Growth, (10)
Reduced Inequalities, (16) Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, and (17) Partnerships for the Goal.
S-LCA can also support Goal 8 of the 2030 Agenda, which calls for the promotion of long-lasting, inclusive and sus-
tainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work. As such it can be seen as a tool that can
contribute to the ILO Decent Work Agenda by contributing to the assessment of working conditions in value chains
and life cycles worldwide. The ILO denes decent work as summing up the aspirations all people have for their working
lives; for work that is productive, delivers a fair income with security and social protection, safeguards basic rights,
offers equality of opportunity and treatment, prospects for personal development, and the chance for recognition and
to have your voice heard. Decent work is also central to efforts to reduce poverty and is a path to achieving equitable,
inclusive, and sustainable development. Ultimately decent work underpins peace and security in communities and
societies, which is covered by S-LCA.
Another framework of importance to S-LCA is the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption
and Production (10YFP)11. It was adopted in 2012 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development and is a global
commitment to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production in both developed and develop-
ing countries. The One Planet network has formed to implement the commitment of the 10YFP. It is a multi-stakeholder
partnership for sustainable development, generating collective impact through a number of sector-specic programs.
As already highlighted by white papers from the Consumer Information Programme, S-LCA has an important role in
enabling the assessment of the social impacts of production and informing more socially sustainable purchasing and
consumption choices.
The UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights has created a path for business to be actively engaged con-
11 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=400&nr=1444&menu=35
34 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
cerning human rights. S-LCA can support Human Rights Due Diligence mandated by the Guiding Principles.
2.8 LINKAGES WITH OTHER CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY TOOLS
S-LCA is unique in the fact that it combines a systemic and comprehensive approach to value chains (the life cycle
perspective) with social data and methods. This characteristic makes it valuable in the larger landscape of Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR)12 tools. S-LCA can contribute to many of the methods and tools. It can serve materiality
assessments, provide results used in reporting and communication, be used to prioritize social audits, and make sure
certications address the main social impacts in the product supply chain. As a tool, it can inform design and its results
provide insights for policymaking. Obviously, the various tools have different objectives and scopes. The following table
presents an overview of some of the main Social Sustainability tools and their usual scope.
12 Although often social responsibility is regarded in a corporate context, it can also be regarded in a broader sense, not delimited to corpo-
rate
Table 5: Overview of main social sustainability tools.
Level of assessment
Type of technique or tool Project, intervention, or
facility Product Organization
Assessment tools Social Impact Assessment
(SIA),
Human Rights Impact Assess-
ment (HRIA),
Social & Human Capital
Protocol,
Social Return on Investment
(SROI).
Social Life Cycle Assessment
(S-LCA) including the Metho-
dological Sheets for Social
Life Cycle Assessment,
Technology assessment,
Social Footprint,
Social Handprint, Handbook
of Product Social Impact
Assessment (PSIA).
Social Organizational Life
Cycle Assessment (SO-LCA),
Social Spend Analysis,
Social Footprint,
Social Handprint, Materiality
Assessment, Human Rights
Due Diligence.
Procedural and management
tools
Social Fingerprint (SA
8000),
Occupational Health and
Safety Assessment Series
(OHSAS) 18001.
Life Cycle Management. Standards and Certica-
tions:
ISO 20400:2017 Sustainable
procurement - Guidance
Guidelines: ISO 26000 Social
Responsibility,
Sustainability Balanced
Scorecard (SBSC); Internatio-
nal Finance Corporation (IFC)
performance standards.
Monitoring tools Social Audits,
Well-Being assessments.
Suppliers self-assess-
ment.
35
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Level of assessment
Type of technique or tool Project, intervention, or
facility Product Organization
Communication tools Certication. Product certication (e.g. Bu-
siness + Institutional Furniture
Manufacturers Association
(BIFMA)),
Guidelines on Social Impact
Product Communication.
Sustainability reports,
Labeling, e.g. Fair trade labels,
JUST, etc.
Sustainability / Social In-
dexes.
Reporting tools Oxfam Poverty Footprint. Guidelines for providing pro-
duct sustainability informa-
tion.
Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI) guidelines,
Social reporting indicators,
Sustainability Accounting
Standards Board (SASB),
Guidelines of International
Integrated Reporting Council
(IIRC),
United Nations Guiding
Principles (UNGP) Reporting
Framework.
In addition, S-LCAs may be the source or use data coming from other data collection activities. This calls for the ne-
cessity to position S-LCAs in the greater context of social sustainability and social responsibility references and tools.
Pragmatically, conducting S-LCAs in a timely and cost-efcient manner necessitates knowledge of and making use of
all resources available.
Six main types of references and instruments have been identied as relevant to social sustainability assessment:
1. International Policy Frameworks (i.e. International Conventions, Sustainable Development Goals, OECD Guide-
lines for Multinational Enterprises);
2. Codes of Conduct and Principles (i.e. company own codes of conduct, Global Compact);
3. Sustainability Reporting Frameworks (i.e. GRI);
4. Sustainability Implementation Guidelines (i.e. ISO 26000: 2011 Guidance on Social Responsibility, ISO
20400:2017 Sustainable procurement – Guidance);
5. Auditing and Monitoring Frameworks (i.e. Responsible Business Alliance, Social and Labor Convergence Proj-
ect, Global Social Compliance Programme, certications); and
6. Financial Indices (i.e. Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes).
In addition, other tools and frameworks may be relevant such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Develop-
ment (WBCSD) Social & Human Capital Protocol. The references and instruments can be classied by their relevance
for different phases of S-LCA.
36 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Table 6: Social responsibility instruments (as listed above), references, and methods relevant for each phase of an
S-LCA (adapted from Benoît 2012).
S-LCA phase Types of instrument, reference, or method
Goal and scope / determination and denition of subcategories
and indicators
International Policy Framework, Codes of Conduct and Principles,
Sustainability Reporting Frameworks, SR Implementation Guide-
lines.
Life cycle inventory Sustainability Reporting Frameworks, Auditing and Monitoring
Frameworks and Financial Indices, Social Impact Assessment.
Life cycle impact assessment International Policy Framework.
Interpretation International Policy Framework, SR Implementation Guidelines,
Sustainability Reporting Frameworks.
The references are relevant to the Goal and Scope phase if they inform decisions relative to the assessment frame-
work and the identication of indicators. The international policy frameworks constitute the foundation for all social
responsibility initiatives, references instruments, and techniques including S-LCA. To be relevant to the life cycle inven-
tory phase, the instruments and references need to offer data collection methods or be a source of data. Instruments
and references are meaningful to the reference scale S-LCIA approach since they can provide performance reference
points. Finally, references and instruments are useful at the Interpretation phase if they can inform the identication of
signicant issues or can be a useful tool to the presentation of results and the drafting of recommendations.
In comparison with other processes and tools, S-LCA can use most data of different scopes. It can make use of in-
formation at the level of the process, production site, organization, country, and country specic sector or commodity.
Sustainability reports focus mostly on organizational level information. This is why S-LCA has so many connections
with other tools.
Figure 7: Estimate of the percentage of different scope level information used in a set of tools (adapted from Benoît,
2012).
S-LCAE-LCA Social audit Country indexSustainability
report
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
SCOPE OF INFORMATION / TOOL
Process
Organization
Country specific sector or commodity
Production site
Country / region
37
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Concerning use of data from other tools or approaches, for instance, practitioners can use data initially collected for
a social audit or certication verication as part of their inventory. Practitioners could also use data from sustainabil-
ity reports as part of their inventory. On the flip side, S-LCA results can be used to prioritize production activities that
should be audited, and its results may be used in sustainability reports.
2.9 IMPLEMENTATION OF S-LCA AND SO-LCA
S-LCA and Social Organizational LCA (SO-LCA) implementation can benet from previous experience and existing
practice with other social and environmental assessment approaches.
For the general implementation of S-LCA and SO-LCA, three different paths are distinguished accounting for the orga-
nization’s previous experience (see Figure 8). The blue and green outer circles of the gure represent the experience of
organizations with social and/or environmental assessment approaches. The three paths indicate which of the three
key features of SO-LCA are missing in the approaches already applied and need to be included for implementing S-LCA
and SO-LCA.
Figure 8: The three experience-based pathways to implement SO-LCA. The terms in the outer circles of S-LCA
and SO-LCA describe the perspectives that need to be added when coming from pathways 1-3 source: Based on
Martínez-Blanco et al. (2015c), abbreviations include: Social impact assessment (SIA), Accountability 1000 assurance
standard (AA1000), Social accountability international sa8000 standard (SA8000), Global reporting initiative (GRI), En-
vironmental management systems (EMS), Product environmental footprint (PEF).
SIA,
AA1000,
SA8000,
GRI
Pathway 1
Pathway 1
EMS,
OLCA
Pathway 2b
SO-LCA
L
i
f
e
c
y
c
l
e
S
o
c
i
a
l
a
s
p
e
c
t
s
O
r
g
a
n
i
z
a
t
i
o
n
E-LCA,
PEF,
Carbon
footprint
Pathway 2a
S-LCA
L
i
f
e
c
y
c
l
e
S
o
c
i
a
l
a
s
p
e
c
t
s
P
r
o
d
u
c
t
Pathway 3
Product based
environmental
life cycle
approaches
Organizational
environmental
life cycle
approaches
Social
organizational
approaches
38 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
2.9.1 PATH 1: EXPERIENCE WITH SOCIAL ASSESSMENT AT ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL
Organizations that already apply social assessments at the organizational level, may use available results and expe-
rience as a starting point for implementing S-LCA and SO-LCA. Those schemes and standards can be helpful in two
different ways:
1. They provide a preliminary denition of the organization’s structure, inputs and outputs, etc. This may assist
in the implementation of SO-LCA by dening the system boundary, the data needed, and the identication of
the network of suppliers;
2. They allow for a straightforward data collection through transfer of existing data for completing the S-LCA or
SO-LCA inventory on direct activities.
Further information on social assessments at the organizational level and details on which methods can support which
S-LCA phases can be found in Section 2.8.
2.9.2 PATH 2: EXPERIENCE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL LIFE-CYCLE APPROACHES
While experience with product based environmental life cycle approaches (like E-LCA) can support the application of
S-LCA, experience in organizational environmental life cycle approaches (like OLCA) can assist organizations in apply-
ing SO-LCA. Although the data collected for those approaches correspond to the environmental dimension, the exist-
ing experience can support in preliminary denition of the Goal and Scope, which would then be adapted to the social
context. An example can be taken from Box 3.
BOX 3: O-LCA AS A PREREQUISITE FOR SO-LCA
When O-LCA is used as a prerequisite for SO-LCA, denitions of the reporting organization and the system
boundaries may be also applicable for SO-LCA. Indeed, if the organization’s overall aim is a sustainability
assessment for the organization and its value chain, it should prefer to use the same scope in both O-LCA
and SO-LCA. Additionally, with the combination, a preliminary inventory (data on inputs and outputs) may be
provided of the reporting organization. This can be helpful for the identication of the suppliers, locations, and
involved stakeholders. Furthermore, relations settled between different internal management levels and with
suppliers, and data collection schemes developed by the organization for O-LCA, may provide a promising
framework to apply SO-LCA.
NOTE: For small organizations and/or organizations with narrow portfolios, E-LCAs may bring comparable
benets for applying SO-LCA. The same may hold true for single-indicator footprints (Carbon and/or Water
Footprints).
2.9.3 PATH 3: EXPERIENCE WITH PRODUCT/ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIAL LIFE CYCLE APPROACHES
Path 3 considers organizations that have already performed S-LCA of products from their portfolio and now want to
further assess the social performance of the entire organization or, vice versa, organizations that have already ac-
complished SO-LCA and now intend to analyse the social performance of their products. Data on this level are highly
useful, as most of the available social data and existing indicators used in S-LCA can also be used by SO-LCA and vice
versa. Especially small organizations with a small product portfolio can benet from existing S-LCAs when applying
SO-LCA. In any case, performed S-LCA and SO-LCA studies may help to identify social hotspots. Caution is needed,
39
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
when transferring the S-LCA results to the organizational level, as unlike O-LCA where the results of previous E-LCAs
could be weighted according to the number of products, a similar process may not be possible for SO-LCA. First of all,
as qualitative or semi-quantitative values are difcult to sum up and second, as the risk of double counting may occur.
Social impacts are often not expressed along impact pathways, which leaves the interrelations along the value chain
open and unclear. For the same reasons, caution is needed when breaking down SO-LCA results to an organization’s
individual products.
2.10 REFERENCES
Benoît Norris, C., 2012. Social Life Cycle Assessment: A Technique Providing a New Wealth of Information to Inform
Sustainability-Related Decision Making. In M. A. Curran (Ed.), Life Cycle Assessment Handbook: A Guide for Environ-
mentally Sustainable Products (pp. 433–452). Scrivener Publishing LLC.
Benoît Norris, C., Cavan, D.A., Norris, G., 2012. Identifying Social Impacts in Product Supply Chains: Overview and Appli-
cation of the Social Hotspot Database. Sustainability 4, 1946–1965. https://doi.org/10.3390/su4091946
Benoît Norris, C., Norris, G.A., Azuero, L., Pflueger, J., 2019. Creating Social Handprints: Method and Case Study in the
Electronic Computer Manufacturing Industry. Resources 8, 176. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources8040176
Chhipi-Shrestha, G.K., Kasun Hewage, R.S., 2015. ‘Socializing’ sustainability: a critical review on current development
status of social life cycle impact assessment method. Clean Technol. Environ. Policy 17, 579–596.
Di Cesare, S., Silveri, F., Sala, S., Petti, L., 2018. Positive impacts in social life cycle assessment: state of the art and the
way forward. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 23, 406-421 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-016-1169-7
Ekener, E., Hansson, J. & Gustavsson, M. Addressing positive impacts in social LCA—discussing current and new ap-
proaches exemplied by the case of vehicle fuels. Int J Life Cycle Assess 23, 556–568 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11367-016-1058-0
Goedkoop, M.J.; Indrane, D.; de Beer I.M.; Product Social Impact Assessment Handbook- 2018, Amersfoort, September
1st, 2018.
Iofrida, N., De Luca, A.I., Strano A., Gulisano, G., 2018. Can social research paradigms justify the diversity of approaches
to social life cycle assessment? International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 23(3), 464-480
Kühnen, M., Hahn, R., 2019. From SLCA to Positive Sustainability Performance Measurement: A Two-Tier Delphi Study.
J. Ind. Ecol. 23(3), 615–634. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12762
Norris, G.A., 2006. Social Impacts in Product Life Cycles Towards Life Cycle Attribute Assessment. Int. J. Life Cycle
Assess. 1, 97–104.
Parent, J., Cucuzzella, C., Revéret, J.P., 2010. Impact assessment in SLCA: Sorting the sLCIA methods according to their
outcomes. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 15, 164–171. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-009-0146-9
UNEP/SETAC, 2009. Benoît, C., Mazijn, B. (Eds.), 2009. Guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products. UNEP/
SETAC Life Cycle Initiative.
Wood, D., 2016. in Management. ISBN: 9780199846740. Published online July 2016 | | DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/
obo/9780199846740-0099
40 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
HOW TO CONDUCT
ASSESSMENT?ASSESSMENT?
SOCIAL LIFE CYCLE
41
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
3. Goal and scope denition
Goal and Scope (G&S) denition is the rst phase of an S-LCA study where the purpose, the object, as well as the meth-
odological framework, are determined. The objective is to provide a clear statement of purpose of the study and dene
its breadth and depth.
This is a crucial phase of the process, which will have a signicant impact on how the study will be conducted and, ul-
timately, on the results. The Goal and Scope, and by extension the complete S-LCA, are often carried out in an iterative
fashion – it may be revised due to unforeseen limitations, constraints, or as a result of additional information uncovered
along the way. Such modications made during the process, together with their justication, should be documented.
Participation of stakeholders (dened as those affected in any way by the study and its result) in the development of
the Goal and Scope is strongly encouraged. This is in order to ensure optimal decision-making at this crucial phase.
3.1 GOAL DEFINITION
The rst step of an S-LCA aims to specify why the study is being conducted. What is its goal? What is its intended
use? Who is the target audience? What do we want to assess? Does the study intend to support decision making? On
what topic? What are the potential improvement opportunities that are being sought through the knowledge that will
be produced by the study? Which stakeholders are affected? The goal(s) should be clearly dened in order to ensure
successful outcomes.
The goals sought by S-LCA case studies can vary. Examples of different purposes are:
To support sustainable design of products;
To support Human Rights Due Diligence of organizations;
To identify main social Hotspots of a product and/or organizations;
To quantify and qualify the potential social performance of products and/or related impacts, in order to support
sustainable consumption;
To examine potential social improvement options along the life cycle;
42 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
To assess the most relevant stages in the social value chain in terms of social impacts/hotspots (materiality13,
transparency);
To assess and compare, when possible, potential social performance and/or social impacts of product-sys-
tems;
To communicate the potential social performance and/or social impacts of the product to the public;
To understand if the product value chain contributes to the social development of its stakeholders.
The target audience of a study can also vary – it may include the individuals or organization carrying out the study,
trade unions and workers’ representatives, consumers, governments, NGOs, international governmental organizations,
shareholders, or product designers. It is central at this step to determine whether the study is intended for internal or
external use, such as to be used in comparative assertions or to be disclosed to the public. In the latter case, it is rec-
ommended that a third-party external review be planned as part of the study.
Ideally, the goal of the study species whether to align it with attributional or consequential thinking. This will deter-
mine methodological choices in subsequent phases. This will not be discussed in detail in these guidelines, but more
information on these two approaches can be found in the UNEP-SETAC report (2011; “Global Guidance Principles for
Life Cycle Assessment Databases: a basis for greener processes and products”) which describes these two modeling
perspectives and associated methods.
3.2 SCOPE DEFINITION
The scope claries the object of the study and determines its methodological framework. It needs to be related to the
goal of the study.
For this purpose, the following elements should be dened within the scope denition phase. Some elements are op-
tional and may be excluded, depending on the goal of the study.
Dening the object of the study, normally a product, a function, or a service (functional unit, explained later on);
Dening the quantity of materials needed to produce the product or output (reference flow);
Dening what steps, activities, and organizations are needed to comply with the functional unit (the product
system);
Identifying which parts of the product system are part of the assessment (the system boundaries)
Choosing what variable(s) will determine the importance of different activities in the product system (activity
variables);
Stakeholders included and affected, and stakeholders’ involvement strategy;
Type of impact assessment method, and impact categories and/or subcategories included;
Data collection strategies (inventory indicators, data type and data collection);
Data quality requirements;
Allocation procedures;
Interpretation planned;
Assumptions and value choices;
Limitations;
13 For denition of Materiality, see Section 2.3 Main denitions and core concepts
43
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Type of critical review as elaborated in the ISO 14040-14044 if any;
Communication strategies for the results (Selection of results to be communicated, communication format
and specications, type and format of report, other communication).
The system is pre-dened to a certain extent when setting its scope. The scoping decisions may be based on practical
(e.g. data availability) or theoretical reasons (e.g. only processes until factory gate should be considered when compar-
ing the same product but produced differently; see next section on system boundaries). Further detailed specication
of the system is part of the life cycle inventory step. More details are provided on each of these elements in the next
section.
3.2.1 DEFINING THE FUNCTIONAL UNIT
The function denes what is offered by the investigated product or service (referred to as ‘product’ thereafter, for the
sake of simplicity), in measurable terms. It needs to be consistent with the Goal and Scope of the study.
The functional unit denes quantitatively the object of a study. It is particularly relevant in comparative studies, when
two or more products are compared – it ensures that the product alternatives considered have been compared on an
equivalent basis. Dening the functional unit is also important for determining the reference flow. It is necessary to
dene a functional unit to use an S-LCA database, typically in monetary terms because of the use of trade models. For
more information see Section 4.1 on LCI.
In order to dene the functional unit, it is helpful to rst clearly identify the product to be investigated, including its main
function(s) and product utility– in other words, the core characteristics of the product. The location for the use of the
product can also be identied if relevant.
Product utility refers to the perception of the consumer in regard to what the product provides, besides its function (the
capacity of a good to satisfy a need). This appreciation is linked with his/her cultural and social values, as well as his/
her desires and satisfaction. Product utility can be identied in technical terms (quality, functionality, etc.) or in social
terms (convenience, prestige, etc.). This respective characterization of a functional unit aligns with the specication of
a type C positive impact (See Section 2.5). Implicitly, this type of positive impact is thus already present in the assess-
ment, but this could be explicitly brought forward as a type C positive impact.
The following items can assist in identifying the core characteristics of a product. We are using the example of a T-shirt
for illustration:
1. Functionality (to cover the body, being comfortable, dry…);
2. Technical quality (cotton, short sleeves, no buttons, durable, washable…);
3. Additional services (to be used as a cloth after discarding…);
4. Aesthetics (embroidered, printed, new cut/shape…);
5. Image (of a popular brand…);
6. Price (maximum cost, affordable for certain segments of the market…);
44 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
7. Specic environmental and social labelling (labels, certications…);
8. Duration of function or utility14.
There may be several ways to fulll the function. In the example of a T-shirt, either a T-shirt or a Shirt could fulll the
functionality ‘to cover the torso’. One should add all relevant characteristics as a means of narrowing down the function
as much as possible. For example, if a T-shirt is to be used for sporting activities, this should be specied. The charac-
teristics listed for the product can provide information on other products that could meet the required function. In the
example, T-shirts from different brands could be considered15.
An illustration of product utility, function and the functional unit is shown in Figure 9.
14 The duration of the function/utility is particularly relevant in order to identify whether other products/services are necessary to fulll the
required function. For example, if it is determined that the function of a T-shirt is to cover the torso of one person for 70 days over two years
with its initial characteristics, it is necessary to consider that a certain amount of water and detergent are necessary for the fulllment of
this function, whose production and use might be linked to social issues. Accordingly, a T-shirt that lasts twice as long would reduce the
amount of materials and energy needed, and thus probably the associated social impacts.
15 For practitioners who are aiming to seek alternative products to perform the comparison, guidance can be found in the work of Weidema et
al. (2004).
Figure 9: Steps to identify Functional unit.
A clearly stated functional unit should include reasonably narrowed down functions and utilities of the product, the du-
ration of the function, and the location and year (ideally) when the function takes place. For example: “To cover the body
of one person for 70 days during two years in the context of indoor sporting activities in Norway in 2019 and 2020”.
When using a modeling approach based on economic flows/ trade (see Section 4.1.1), which is usually the case when
using an S-LCA database, the functional unit may be described as a currency amount (e.g. dollars, euros, or other de-
pending on the currency used by the economic input output model). For instance, this currency amount can represent
the economic value of a T-shirt or the economic value of T-shirts sold or produced over a period of time (e.g. nancial
year, quarter) depending on the goal(s) of the study. See Section 4.1.1 for more details.
Below are examples of functional units from past S-LCA studies. Some mention the core properties as well.
Core characteristics
• Related to consumers’ choices and
desires
Some subjectivity involved
• Includes both technical and social
aspects
Function
Performance characteristics of the
system being studied
• Needed to define the Functional unit
Functional unit
• Based on the function
Quantitatively defined
• Allows comparability among
products
Necessary to model the product
system
45
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Table 7: Functional Unit from S-LCA case studies (2009-2017).
Sector Functional Unit / Properties Reference
Floriculture The functional unit is a bouquet of roses with 20 caulis per spray, packaged
and transported to the flower auction in Aalsmeeer, the Netherlands. The
considered market segment is long stemmed roses. It is assumed that the
quality of the roses produced in Ecuador and the Netherlands do not differ,
even if the quality of roses is commonly better in Ecuador.
(Franze and Ciroth, 2011)
Hygiene Functional unit: to assist in the cleansing and scenting of a person during a
year (one shower a day).
The product must contain organic material and the packaging should
include recycled material. The producer should be recognized in the market,
especially in regard to product quality and service offered. Because of the
characteristics of the product, the purchase costs may be higher than the
popular products. The product should contain material coming from local
communities.
(Ugaya et al., 2011)
Electronic The functional unit in the study is a laptop with generalized features and with
a typical system of such a computer.
(Ekener-Petersen & Finnveden,
2013)
Waste The functional unit is to collect the used cooking oil generated in neighbo-
rhood of 10,000 inhabitants for 1 year in the city of Barcelona considering
the efciency of each collection system.
(Vinyes et al., 2013)
Building The functional unit is the amount of material (concrete and steel) needed for
1 m2 of floor area created for dwelling and working places for humans.
(Hosseinijou et al., 2014)
Fertilizers The functional unit is to fulll nitrogen fertilization demand to produce 1 ton
of tomato (henceforth, 1 ton of fertilized tomatoes).
(Martínezí-Blanco et al., 2014)
Agrifood The functional unit is 1 kg of the tomato Cuore di Bue, which meets the
nutritional needs of an individual, thus representing an excellent source of
antioxidants, dietary ber, minerals, and vitamins.
(Petti et al., 2018)
Clothing The functional unit is dened as the production of 1 USD worth of clothing
for Swedish consumption.
(Zamani et al., 2016)
Automotive The functional unit is the production of an instrument panel for a midsize
vehicle for an automobile life span of 200,000 km.
(Pastor et al., 2017)
3.2.2 DEFINING THE REFERENCE FLOW
The reference flow translates the functional unit into specic product flows and enables the practitioner to identify the
material inputs necessary for the fulllment of the functional unit. In the T-shirt example, the body of a person can be
covered by T-shirts from different brands. If, however, Brand X T-shirt lasts one year and Brand Y T-shirt, two years; than
the reference flows will be: 2 Brand X T-shirts or 1 Brand Y T-shirt respectively, to cover the period of 2 years. The ac-
tual number of T-shirts required will ultimately have an impact on the amount of material inputs required, in turn linked
to social impacts in the life cycle of that material, even though it does not necessarily scale linearly due to potential
thresholds.
46 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
BOX 4: HOW THE FUNCTIONAL UNIT AND REFERENCE FLOW ARE USED IN S-LCA
In all S-LCA studies, the functional unit and reference flow are used to identify the object of the study and to
help determine the product system and thus the part of the inventory.
As will be described in Chapter 5, in some S-LCA studies, they are also used in order to scale the results ob-
tained at the impact assessment phase. In other words, the results obtained become proportional to the ma-
terial inputs necessary to fulll the functional unit.
Given that some potential social impacts do not depend on the physical flows and the nature of unit processes
but more on the behavior of the companies and stakeholders involved in the life cycle under analysis, some
practitioners do not provide results that have been scaled to the functional unit. One such example could re-
late to the assessment of forced labor where its presence would be flagged but not scaled to the number of
T-shirts part of the product system. The absence of scaling in impact assessment can be performed both for
practical (shortage of data or condentiality) or conceptual reasons (i.e. because of rule-based ethics in which
the occurrence of an issue is evaluated and not necessarily the extent or their consequences, because of using
qualitative social impacts, or because social impacts might not scale linearly). The reasons for the absence of
scaling should be specied and discussed.
On the other hand, on the same impact type, other practitioners may say that if producing two T-shirts involves
more hours of work and more material inputs than producing one T-shirt, it is likely that the identied (poten-
tial) social impact will be proportionally larger.
It is also worth noting that until all forced labor (or child labor, etc.) is eradicated, some amount will be found in
all value chains. Therefore, providing an estimate of the scope of the value chain where the issue is of particular
importance provides meaningful information.
3.2.3 DEFINING THE PRODUCT SYSTEM
Based on the denition of the functional unit, the product system is dened. The product system is the collection of
interconnected unit processes in the life cycle of the product, as dened in the ISO 14040-1404416.
A unit process is the smallest element in a product system where data can be collected – it typically represents a
transformative process in the life cycle or, in simpler terms, an activity of an organization (e.g. manufacturing in a
factory) in the life cycle. Often, a ‘unit process’ can be associated with an ‘activity’, e.g. the unit process of washing
vegetables with the activity of workers to wash them.
Ultimately, the product system should fulll the functional unit. The product system is usually depicted in a process
flowchart which shows the linkages with varying levels of detail. Given that geographical specicity is necessary for
the adequate quality of S-LCA studies, it is also crucial to specify the geographical location of those unit processes
and name the companies/factories involved in the system, if known. The system should include all inputs and outputs
including not only raw materials, but also energy, ancillary materials, and services needed in each unit process along
the product system. The product system may be built based either on information/data on the life cycle, on process
16 The latter is commonly relevant for attributional thinking. For consequential thinking, this would be the processes caused by a decision,
usually an extra demand for the functional unit (for further information see the UNEP-SETAC guidelines (2011)). Despite some differences
regarding the propagation of the product system, further elaboration holds for both.
47
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
data, on economic input-output data (see Box 5), environmental data, purchases/expenditures, or a mixture of these.17
At this stage of the Goal and Scope, it is usually useful to do a literature review to assist in developing a good under-
standing of the product’s life cycle.
A simple product system of the T-shirt is shown in Figure 10, considering in this case all the stages of the life cycle, but
limited to some inputs (for example, fuel need for transportation is not shown in the gure).
17 Economic input-output models consider the transactions between industrial sectors in the world economy. In these models, the processes
are relatively aggregated. The models allow to identify sectors involved far upstream in the making of a product but provide less details
than a process-based model. Process data offer detailed information on specic processes but does not allow to have as much of an in-
depth view upstream.
Figure 10: Example of a product system, here limited to technological processes.
Electricity
Chemicals
Transport
Textile,
cotton
T-shirt
production Disposal
Yarn,
cotton
Weaving
Cotton fibers,
producer I
Cotton fibers,
producer II
Yarn
production
Retail
Use
(washing
/drying)
48 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
BOX 5: USE OF INPUT-OUTPUT ANALYSIS IN S-LCA
Input-output tables can be used to determine a product system. They are mobilized in such a way by S-LCA
databases (SHDB, PSILCA). Input-output tables represent worldwide commercial exchanges between country
specic sectors – as they take into account the whole economy. They provide a comprehensive overview of the
supply chain of the system being studied. However, by essence their data are aggregated, e.g. on sector-country
level. The tables include not only exchanges concerning material inputs, but also exchanges concerning imma-
terial goods and services (e.g. legal services, business services, etc.). See section on life cycle inventory, and
specically Section 4.1.1, for more practical information.
3.2.4 IDENTIFYING THE SYSTEM BOUNDARIES
The system boundaries determine the parts of the product system that will be included in the system being assessed.
A system will typically entail foreground processes (situated closer to the studied product, thus more likely to be directly
studied; for which often specic data are collected) and background processes (further upstream or downstream, for
which often generic data from databases are applied) in the product system.
The system boundaries should be coherent and relevant in relation to the goal of the study. They should be dened ac-
cording to the life cycle logic, which includes all phases from upstream processes (i.e. the processes linked to resource
use, purchasing of goods, and services by the company) to downstream processes (i.e. linked to the distribution, use,
and the end-of-life of products). Ideally, the system boundary should be from cradle to grave, but the goal, resources,
and available data do not always warrant or allow assessing the entire life cycle. Boundary setting is often performed
in an iterative way and if it is needed to narrow the scope of the product system considered, it should be properly ex-
plained and justied.
When setting the system boundary, two perspectives of the system can be taken into account (Zanchi et al., 2018):
1. The physical perspective based on the technological processes or economic flows that characterize the value
chain;
2. The effect perspective based on the interaction between companies, stakeholders, and the relations among
stakeholders involved in the life cycle, as a result of the activities carried out.
The physical perspective allows to dene the production cycle and the life cycle stages; the effect perspective ensures
that key life cycle stakeholders are included.
In the T-shirt example, illustrated by Figure 10, not all processes displayed were considered in the study from which the
example is drawn. In this case, the study did not include the production of chemicals because of pragmatic limitations
in data collection. This is represented with the grey outline (Figure 10), which includes all processes selected within the
boundaries.
3.2.5 ACTIVITY VARIABLE
The activity variable is a measure of process activity which can be related to process output. Activity variables, scaled
by the output of each relevant process, are used to reflect the share of a given activity associated with each unit pro-
cess. As such, it does not represent an impact but rather an elementary flow used to compare the intensity of the
processes and aggregate impact assessment results. The activity variable may be used to represent the impact share
of a process compared to that of the product system (e.g. working injuries can be partitioned among processes based
49
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
on worker hour(s) per process; see Section 4.2 on co-products). Figure 18 presents an example. The activity variable
is useful to represent the product system in a way that gives an idea of the relative signicance of each unit process in
the whole system.
Some studies use an activity variable and others do not. The decision to use an activity variable or not should be
documented in the Goal and Scope. More information on the activity variable can be found in the inventory chapter in
Section 4.1.3.
3.2.6 CUT-OFF CRITERIA
The studied system boundaries may depend on the goal of the study and the amount of resources available to obtain
the necessary data. Because of practical limitations, e.g. data needed can only be obtained through onsite data collec-
tion, it may be necessary to reduce the breadth of the studied system, even when a cradle to grave scope would have
been preferred.
Since the system under analysis may be substantial, out of practical reasons, cut-off criteria are needed that exclude
some of the unit processes from the initially identied system. For example, the box for ‘Transport’ in Figure 10 would
also include the vehicles being produced upstream (and the machinery and infrastructure to produce them and so
on) – as vehicles are necessary for transport. Yet, Figure 10 excludes vehicles production. According to the ISO 14040
standard, all relevant parts of the life cycle shall be included in the study. There is a risk that cut-off may be used to
leave out sensitive issues. Therefore, the question remains:
Which unit processes should absolutely stay in and what can be left out?
Cut-off criteria are not presently applied in a consistent manner in S-LCA. It is possible to identify three types of cut-off
criteria which are:
1. Social signicance;
2. Identical elements;
3. Available resources.
Figure 11 shows the different types of cut-off criteria, the approaches, and some suggested papers for further infor-
mation.
Some authors use social signicance cut-off criteria through quantitative (i.e. using activity variables) and/or qualita-
tive (i.e. considering the processes which present more potential for social concern) approaches. It is also possible to
leave out some processes in comparative S-LCAs, where only differing processes need to be included. Social signi-
cance as a cut-off criterion is recommended in S-LCA. Cut-off criteria based on lack of resources should be avoided if
possible. It is important to be very transparent when presenting the system boundaries and the cut-off methods.
50 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Figure 11: Summary of types of cut-off criteria, approach used, and literature suggested.
3.2.7 LIMITATIONS OF DATA ACCESS
In order to perform an S-LCA, generic and/or site-specic data need to be collected for the various steps of the value
chain/life cycle. However, onsite data collection is resource heavy and time-consuming and conducting eld investi-
gations in all the phases of the life cycle (very often occurring in different locations of the world) is often not feasible.
Consequently, the amount of resources available to obtain specic data is often the limiting factor in the denition of
the product system. In general, site-specic data is more difcult to obtain in the outer ends of the product system,
such as raw material extraction and waste handling. In order to keep a life cycle perspective, not cutting off the ends of
the product system, the practitioner can use generic data, or complement on-site data collection with generic data
for some part of the value chain (often the case for background processes). Databases are available that provide
generic information on social aspects in country-sector combinations (see Chapter 4).
3.2.8 STAKEHOLDER CATEGORIZATION & INVOLVEMENT
In S-LCA, a stakeholder category is a group type that can be affected by the activities of organizations involved in the
life cycle of the product, service, or organization under consideration.
The list of stakeholder categories, considers the main categories potentially impacted by the life cycle of a product, as
presented in Chapter 2. These stakeholder categories are: Workers, Consumers, Local Communities, Society, Children,
and Other Value Chain Actors.
In addition, other stakeholder categories can be dened, and stakeholders should be involved when conducting an
S-LCA (in line with the Goal and Scope).
Stakeholders to be involved can be identied through different approaches. The process for the selection of the stake-
holder categories to include and the stakeholders to involve in the study shall be transparently documented including
the justication. A materiality assessment can support stakeholder(s) selection.
Focus on stakeholder groups based on systematic
competitive model
Data and time avalability
Comparative S-LCAs or use of identical process in
the same country / organization
Approaches
Cut-off criteria
Qualitative approaches
Social significance
Available resources
Examples in literature
(De Luca et al., 2015;
Paragahawewa et al., 2009)
(Ekener-Peterson and
Finnveden, 2013)
(Martinez-Blanco et al., 2014)
(Lagare and Macombe, 2012)
(Franze and Ciroth, 2011)
(Foolmaun and Ramjeeawon, 2013;
Lehmann et al., 2013;
Chang et al., 2012)
Quantitative approaches
Experts judgements
Social context
Material use
Work hour
Identical elements
51
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
BOX 6: EXAMPLE OF A NORMATIVE APPROACH TO IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDERS
An approach to the selection of stakeholders could use the following three criteria:
1. Impact: This criterion is also used in E-LCA and in a Human Rights Due Diligence process and consists
of gathering those affected by a certain production process;
2. Legitimacy: It consists of identifying the representatives of interests’ groups;
3. Completeness: It consists of including stakeholders with different social representations and attributes.
The stakeholder categories selected may have a direct relationship with a production activity of the product system or
may be in relation to a stakeholder that is affected by one. Thus, the selection of stakeholders may vary from one study
to another but can also vary within each step of the value chain of the same study. The selection of stakeholder cat-
egories also affects the choice of impact categories and subcategories at each step of the life cycle. The main rule is:
ALL RELEVANT stakeholders and impact categories should be considered in an S-LCA study.18
Practitioners may also choose to develop new stakeholder categories or subdivide existing ones, if relevant to the stud-
ied product, service, or organization. This may be relevant in order to ensure that the study takes into account more
vulnerable stakeholders, which may not have a voice in power relations. For instance, the list of stakeholders could be
further detailed by specifying different types of workers (e.g. women or migrant workers within the worker’s category).
Besides covering all individuals, double counting among categories (e.g. a person is both a worker and a consumer) is
kept in mind when considering results of the stakeholder groups.
Few studies manage to cover all stakeholders and impact subcategories. Inclusion and exclusion of different stake-
holder groups and/or impact categories should be justied on the basis of their relevance to the goal of the study, and
the choice process should be described. In practice, consumers, value chain actors, and society are often overlooked
as stakeholder categories, while workers and local communities appear to be frequently included.
Applying participatory approaches (i.e. approach in which actors participate and contribute to the study or scientic
process) in stakeholder selection allows the perspective of different actors involved in the system under investigation
to be taken into account and, in turn, makes S-LCA studies more locally relevant. Stakeholder participation can help
in the selection of a nal set of indicators that reflect stakeholders’ values, improves democratic representation, and
promotes empowerment and learning opportunities for communities while encouraging partnerships. Moreover, it in-
creases the legitimacy of the assessment.
One well-known participatory approach is focus groups. A focus group is a type of group interview organized to acquire
a portrait of combined local perspective on a specic set of issues. Focus groups with a range of actors can be used
to identify relevant stakeholder groups and indicators. Focus groups can also be used in impact assessment when
dening the relative importance (weight) of each impact (sub)category.
18 The choice of relevant stakeholders and impact categories varies according to the goal of the study, the intended uses, the analyzed terri-
torial context, the complexity of the value chain, and other elements like cultural background and values.
52 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
3.2.9 IMPACT ASSESSMENT METHOD AND IMPACT SUBCATEGORIES
3.2.9.1 IMPACT ASSESSMENT METHOD
The choice of impact assessment methods ought to be specied in the Goal and Scope of a study. This includes (also
compare to Figure 12):
1. Select the impact assessment approach;
a) Reference Scale S-LCIA; or
b) Impact Pathway S-LCIA;
2. Identify the social topic(s) of interest;
a) Select stakeholders, subcategories and/or impact categories (if using Reference Scale (RS) S-LCIA);
b) Select stakeholders and impact categories (if using Impact Pathway (IP) S-LCIA);
3. Present the prerequisites for the respective S-LCIA method chosen;
a) Reference scales used for assessment (if using RS S-LCIA);
b) Characterization model and type of impact pathway used for assessment (if using IP S-LCIA);
4. Determine the weighting approach (if applicable).
Figure 12: Steps in the G&S with regard to impact assessment dividing into RS S-LCI and IP S-LCI.
For further guidance see Section 2.4 and Chapter 5.
NOTE: As explained in Chapter 5, there are different types of impact assessment in S-LCA. RS S-LCIA utilizes subcat-
egories (or impact categories) related to the stakeholders affected and the organizations evaluated according to ref-
erence scales. IP S-LCIA makes use of social impact pathways from the social activity/stressor to the social damage.
The selection of the type of impact assessment is important, as it will have implications on the data collection during
the inventory phase.
RS & IP S-LCIA
1) Determine
impact assessment
method
RS & IP S-LCIA
2) Decide for topic
of assessment
RS & IP S-LCIA
4) Determine
weighting method
(if applicable)
RS S-LCIA
3) Choose
reference scales
IP S-LCIA
3) Choose
characterization
model and type of
impact pathway
53
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
3.2.9.2 IMPACT CATEGORIES AND SUBCATEGORIES
Subcategories and/or impact categories (introduced in Section 2.2) to be covered in the study also ought to be dened
at the Goal and Scope phase (this relates to the second step as described in the previous section and Figure 12).
The subcategories/impact categories can be independent from the type of impact assessment chosen (RS S-LCIA or
IP S-LCIA) and should cover the relevant social and socio-economic impacts from the product life cycle associated
with the stakeholders selected for the study. However, RS S-LCIA typically has a stronger focus on impact subcate-
gories and stakeholder groups (compare Table 8) while IP S-LCIA typically classies inventory indicators with impact
categories at the midpoint and endpoint level (compare Table 9). As mentioned in previous sections, midpoint covers
the characterization of impact midway through the cause-effect chain and endpoint at the stage of Area of Protection,
i.e. the nal impact on human well-being.
Table 8: Example of prominent linkages between stakeholders and subcategories for RS S-LCIA, within the impact
category Labor rights.
Stakeholder Impact Subcategory
Worker Child labor
Forced labor
Table 9: Example of linkages between inventory indicators and impact categories in IP S-LCIA, within the impact cat-
egory Labor rights.
Inventory indicator Midpoint impact Endpoint impact
Worker Wage level Standard of living
Schooling Human development
An iterative renement is recommended for the subcategory/impact category selection, comparing Goal and Scope
and Impact Assessment phases when results have been obtained. In an earlier stage, materiality assessment can aid
in identifying relevant categories.
3.2.10 INDICATORS, DATA TYPE, AND DATA COLLECTION STRATEGIES
The status of impact or subcategories is assessed by collecting data on one or several indicators, selected to cover the
most relevant aspects of the category. The link can be illustrated with an example below:
Table 10: Example of a linkage between stakeholders, subcategories, and indicators.
Stakeholder Impact Subcategory Indicator
Worker Child labor Hours or percentage of child labor in the
workforce
54 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
In the Goal and Scope phase, it is important that the list of indicators and metrics refer to the respective impact and/or
subcategories which ought to be assessed in the study. Data collection methods should also be specied. A table with
the subcategories, their corresponding indicators, and data collection methods should sufce to communicate this
information. More guidance on indicator choice and data collection is provided in Chapter 4.
3.3 REFERENCES
Chang, Y.-J., Schau, E., Finkbeiner, M., 2012. Application of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment to the Bamboo and
Aluminum Bicycle in Surveying Social Risks of Developing Countries. https://doi.org/10.3390/wsf2-00953
De Luca AI, Iofrida N, Strano A, Falcone G, Gulisano G (2015) Social Life cycle Assessment and participatory approach-
es: a methodological proposal applied to citrus farming in Southern Italy. Integr Environ Assess Manag. 11(3):383-396.
DOI:10.1002/ieam.1611
Ekener-Petersen, E., Finnveden, G., 2013. Potential hotspots identied by social LCA - Part 1: A case study of a laptop
computer. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 18, 127–143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-012-0442-7
Franze, J., Ciroth, A., 2011. A comparison of cut roses from Ecuador and the Netherlands. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 16,
366–379. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11367-011-0266-x
Foolmaun, R., Ramjeeawon, T., 2013. Comparative life cycle assessment and social life cycle assessment of used
polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles in Mauritius. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 18, 155-171
Hosseinijou S, Mansour S, Shirazi M (2014) Social life cycle assessment for material selection: a case study of building
materials. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 19, 620–645
ISO, 2006a. ISO 14040:2006 Environmental management -Life cycle assessment - Principles and framework.
Lagarde, V, Macombe, C, 2013. Designing the social life cycle of products from the systematic competitive model. Int.
J. Life Cycle Assess. 18, 172–184. DOI:10.1007/s11367-012-0448-1
Lehmann, A., Zschieschang, E., Traverso, M., Finkbeiner, M., Schebek, L., 2013. Social aspects for sustainability assess-
ment of technologies - challenges for social life cycle assessment (SLCA). Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 18, 1581–1592.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-013-0594-0
Martínez-Blanco, J., Lehmann, A., Muñoz, P., Antón, A., Traverso, M., Rieradevall, J., Finkbeiner, M., 2014. Application
challenges for the social Life Cycle Assessment of fertilizers within life cycle sustainability assessment. J. Clean. Prod.
69, 34–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.01.044
Paragahawewa, U., Blackett, P., Small, B., 2009.: Social Life Cycle Analysis (S-LCA): Some Methodological Issues and
Potential Application to Cheese Production in New Zealand. AgResearch. Hamilton, Neuseeland. Online verfügbar un-
ter: http://www.saiplatform.org/uploads/Library/SocialLCA-FinalReport_July2009.pdf, accessed 08.04.2011.
Pastor, M.M., Schatz, T., Traverso, M., Wagner, V., Hinrichsen, O., 2018. Social aspects of water consumption: risk of ac-
cess to unimproved drinking water and to unimproved sanitation facilities—an example from the automobile industry.
Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 23, 940–956. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-017-1342-7
Petti, L., Sanchez Ramirez, P.K., Traverso, M., Ugaya, C.M.L., 2018. An Italian tomato “Cuore di Bue” case study: chal-
lenges and benets using subcategory assessment method for social life cycle assessment. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess.
23, 569–580. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-016-1175-9201621, 106–117
Ugaya, C.M.L., Brones, F.; Correa, S., 2011. S-LCA: Preliminary results of Natura’s cocoa soap bar. Available at: http://
55
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
www.lcm2011.org/papers.html?le=tl_les/pdf/paper/13_Session_Life_Cycle_Sustainability_Assessement_I/6_Uga-
ya-S-LCA_Preliminary_results_of_Naturas_cocoa_soap_bar-763_b.pdf LCM 2011. 12p.
UNEP/SETAC, 2009. Benoît, C., Mazijn, B. (Eds.), 2009. Guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products. UNEP/
SETAC Life Cycle Initiative.
UNEP/SETAC, 2011. Global Guidance Principles for Life Cycle Assessment Databases: a basis for greener processes
and products. UNEP. 156p.
Vinyes, E., Oliver-Solà, J., Ugaya, C., Rieradevall, J., Gasol, C.M., 2013. Application of LCSA to used cooking oil waste
management. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 18, 445–455. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-012-0482-z
Weidema, B., Wenzel, H., Petersen, C., Hansen, K., 2004. The Product, Functional Unit and Reference Flows in LCA Func-
tional Unit and. Environ. News.
Zamani, B., Sandin, G., Svanström, M., Peters, G.M., 2018. Hotspot identication in the clothing industry using social
life cycle assessment — opportunities and challenges of input-output modelling. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 536–546.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-016-1113-x
Zanchi, L., Delogu, M., Zamagni, A., Pierini, M., 2018. Analysis of the main elements affecting social LCA applications:
challenges for the automotive sector. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 23, 519–535.
56 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
4. Life cycle inventory
The Social Life Cycle Inventory (S-LCI) is about collecting data for all unit processes within the system boundaries (as
dened in the G&S). It involves:
1. Identifying the data to be prioritized for collection;
2. Collecting data for hotspot assessment if this is part of the Goal and Scope;
3. Collecting data for the selected/relevant stakeholders and subcategories;
4. Collecting complementary data for the impact assessment (NOTE: This part is heavily dependent upon the
Type of S-LCIA chosen);
5. Collecting site specic (primary) and generic (secondary) data for unit processes and activity variables;
6. Collecting data for scoring and/or weighting.
NOTE: This part is heavily dependent upon the Type of impact assessment chosen.
4.1 HOW TO CONDUCT THE LIFE CYCLE INVENTORY ANALYSIS?
4.1.1 THE BASICS OF LIFE CYCLE INVENTORY IN THE CONTEXT OF S-LCA
In the Goal and Scope section, the functional unit/reference flow (e.g. one banana) and the related product system
including its system boundaries have been specied (e.g. cradle-to-gate of banana producer). The life cycle inventory
consists of the inventory of all flows of that studied system normalized per functional unit (if implementing a quanti-
tative approach). For example, for that banana system, 55 kWh of electricity is consumed worth 5.50 USD, 2 working
hours are needed and the wage is below the living wage, etc. During the Life Cycle Inventory, we need to collect the
information about the activity variable (e.g. worker-hours) when applicable (see Section 4.1.3 on activity variable).
We also need to collect data for the social flows (indicators) (which link with the socio-economic system through the
activity variable, e.g. worker hours, just like pollutants and resources from nature are elementary flows for an E-LCA).
57
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
To obtain this inventory, the following steps are taken:
1. The studied system is subdivided into interlinked processes that provide products or services to each other
e.g. fertilizer production and agricultural cultivation etc. This results in a flow chart, which is already part of
the G&S;
2. For each process, flow amounts are obtained, which are commonly normalized to a process output, e.g. 5
kWh electricity to produce 1 kg of fertilizer. Furthermore, information on the system can be collected;
3. The total amounts of the processes and their flows are quantied for the reference flow, which is commonly
done based on a linear relationship, i.e. if 2 worker-hours are needed for 1 kg of fertilizer, then 4 worker hours
are needed when 2 kg of fertilizer is indirectly needed;
4. Data on the social inventory data related to the main stakeholders dened in the G&S must be collected for
all processes and flows before dened, e.g. salary of workers involved in the production of 2 kg of fertilizer as
well as for 5 kWh of electricity.
When it comes to the calculation method of step 3, this can be done iteratively, tracing back amounts through the
system, e.g. 1 kg of banana needs 0.1 kg fertilizer and 1 kg fertilizer needs 5 kWh electricity, so 1 kg of banana needs
0.5 kWh of electricity for fertilizer production. The linear models are apprehended to calculate all these flows in an LCA
software. For an overview on this type of modelling in the context of LCA, see the work of Suh and Huppes (2005).
Existing LCA software tools such as SimaPro and OpenLCA provide access to these linear models and to impact as-
sessment methods.
Since a typical product system directly and indirectly encompasses thousands of processes, databases and models
have been developed.
If collecting solely qualitative or semi-quantitative data, only step 1 needs to be applied.
For steps 1 and 2, life cycle inventory databases which already contain data on several processes (process-based) or
sectors (Input/output-based) are available. For more on these databases, see Section 4.1.6 on generic and secondary
data collection.
The foreground system modelling steps 1 and 2 (and possibly step 3) can be performed automatically via a database
or manually, i.e. specify the processes and their flow amounts.
When applying a qualitative approach, the processes will simply be identied without attempting to link them quanti-
tatively (i.e. it will just be identied whether there is a link/flow, not the flow amount).
For modelling the background system, a database and software will usually be used. When manually modelling the
foreground system the results of it can then be combined with the automatically generated background to cover the
complete product system. When it comes to software, some allow new processes to be directly implemented and
linked with the database and calculations (e.g. GaBi, SimaPro, openLCA).
The above approach illustrates a “process-based”-model, i.e. a product system is subdivided into processes (pro-
cess-based). Similarly, the system can also be divided into “sectors”. The sectors are related by economic flows from
a specied currency (see example in Figure 13 and Box 7). This sector-based approach is often applied to S-LCA.
These approaches can also be combined as hybrid approaches. See the work of Suh and Huppes (2005) for an over-
view on process-based, sector-based, and hybrid approaches.
58 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
Figure 13: A generic example for a life cycle inventory approach based on sectors, which is often used in S-LCA data-
bases. Economic flows between sectors are depicted, along with the activity variable of worker-hours (in red). Addition-
al information on the sectors and countries (in turquoise) are shown, that are then associated with the activity variables
in the inventory.
For further reading, in particular consider the Global Guidance Principles for Life Cycle Databases published by UN-
EP-SETAC.
Country X
0.02 WORKER-HOURS
Plastic
production
sector
Electricity
distribution
sector
0.01 WORKER-HOURS
Manufacturing
sector
0.5 WORKER-HOURS
Bad working
conditions in
this sector
Flooring
usage
Country Y
Plastic waste
handling
sector
0.1 WORKER-HOURS
Good working
conditions in
this sector
$1
flooring
$0.1
flooring
waste
$0.5
plastics
$0.4 other costs
& added value
$0.5
electricity
Medium risk for
human rights
violation in
Country X
Flows are valid for a certain time period, e.g. the year 2019
Life cycle inventory for 1 $ of flooring with worker-hours as
activity variable:
0.5 worker-hours in bad working conditions
0.53 worker-hours in a country with medium risk of human right violation
0.1 worker-hours in good working conditions
Life cycle inventory based on sectors, fictional example for a part of the system of flooring products
59
Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
BOX 7: EXAMPLE OF LIFE CYCLE INVENTORY BASED ON SECTORS FROM AN ACTUAL DATABASE: SOCIAL HOTSPOT DATABASE
In the example below, for $1000 (USD) of sugar, the economic flow in USD and related hours with medium risk
(medium risk hours equivalent; Mrh) for labor rights and decent work infringement are presented. Not all sec-
tors and flows are shown.
Figure 14: An example for a life cycle inventory approach based on sectors, which is often used in social LCA
databases (adapted from SHDB Ethical Supply Chain Tool, 2020).
4.1.2 PRIORITIZING DATA COLLECTION
The most time-consuming step of data collection often consists in collecting specic data for the stakeholders and
impact subcategories included in the study from the organizations and sites related to the value chain. Without prioriti-
zation, this would consist of visiting thousands of sites. This could be expensive and time consuming, even for a small
value chain. Therefore, prioritization and estimation of the relative importance of all activities in a product system are
relevant to guide data collection and allocation of efforts. Literature review information, data on activity variables, and
social hotspots provide information that can guide the decision process on data collection prioritization.
a) First approach to prioritize data collection: Does the literature review of the studied system identify key social
issues not to miss in the S-LCA?
A literature review can highlight key potential social impacts that have already been documented in previous studies.
This information can help identify specic unit processes for which data should be collected. For example, other stud-
Sugar
$: 1000
Sugar cane, sugar beet/GTM
$: 1000 1835.96 Mrh
Trade/GTM
$: 10.58 43.91 Mrh
Chemical, rubber, plastic
products/GTM
$: 5.37 3.42 Mrh
Chemical, rubber, plastic
products/GTM
$: 43.41 27.63 Mrh
Sugar cane, sugar beet/GTM
$: 32.42 59.52 Mrh
Financial services nec/GTM
$: 19.77 80.9 Mrh
Chemical, rubber, plastic
products/USA
$: 17.21 0.21 Mrh
Chemical, rubber, plastic
products/MEX
$: 7.47 0.12 Mrh
Crops nec/GTM
$: 6.25 11.03 Mrh
60 Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations 2020
ies point out that child labor is an important social issue in cotton production, thus studies on garments made of cotton
should collect data on that particular process.
b) Second approach to prioritize data collection: Which are the most active or intensive activities/unit processes
in the studied system, e.g. based on an activity variable?
In order to explore the relative intensity of different unit processes in a product’s life cycle, an activity variable should be
determined. The most commonly used activity variable is worker-hours.19 See more on how to collect activity variable
data in the next section.
c) Third approach to prioritize data: Identify the hotspots in the product’s life cycle.
As mentioned, an S-LCA is an iterative procedure. Therefore, a rst analysis can be conducted using a database and
software to identify the social hotspots of the product system. This generic analysis can form the core of the S-LCA
study and be complemented with other data sources for some of the processes (foreground or background) and made
more specic over time in an iterative fashion.
Social hotspots are unit processes located in a region (e.g. country) where a situation occurs that may be considered
a problem, a risk, or an opportunity, in relation to a social issue that is considered to be threatening social well-being or
that may contribute to its further development.
The social issues considered are those covered by the impact subcategories, as well as some other related issues also
made available in the different tools and databases. More information about the databases is provided in Box 8 and
Section 4.1.6 below and detailed guidance on how to use them can be obtained from database providers.
Social hotspots can be singled out as unit processes where data collection must be prioritized. In particular, if the goal
of the S-LCA is to identify actual impacts, on-site visits must be organized to collect site-specic data (see Section
4.1.7).
19 As will be explained in Section 3.2.5, the greater the value of the activity variable for a given unit process, the greater the importance (in
terms of worker-hours) of that unit process in the life cycle. Given the predominance of these unit processes, it can be relevant to prioritize
data collection on them.