Social Life Cycle Assessment of cellulose produced in Canada

Context The pursuit of innovation of the Canadian forests industry has led them to undertake collaborative and multi-disciplinary work that have brought academic, government and researchers together through a Value Chain... [ view full abstract ]

Context
The pursuit of innovation of the Canadian forests industry has led them to undertake collaborative and multi-disciplinary work that have brought academic, government and researchers together through a Value Chain Optimization Research Network.

One aspect of this Network refers to the comprehensive considerations of social performance of forest-based products beyond those commonly adopted frameworks such as forest certifications. As a result, we are involved in the development of a sector profile of virgin wood pulp (cellulose) produced in Canada through a Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA).


Objectives
The overall goal of this investigation attempts to increase our understanding of the social effects of cellulose production in Canada as well as to document methodological and practical implications of adopting an SLCA approach.

Methodology/approach
This investigation adopts the United Nations Environmental Programme guidelines and applies a sectorial methodological approach similar to Revéret, Couture, & Parent (2015). We build a sectorial profile for foreground processes and identified potential hotspot upstream of the value chain (background).

In phase one, we reviewed scholar and gray literature to understand the social effects and the context of cellulose production in Canada.

In phase two, we defined the studied system including modeling requirements such as description of physical system and SLCA product system. This also included the definition of stakeholder categories, impact subcategories and inventory indicators for the site specific and generic assessment. Performance reference points (PRP) and evaluation scales were also adopted to assess the performance of the product system.

In phase three, we developed and pilot a questionnaire for data collection to cellulose producers, obtained ethic board approvals, and submitted instruments for collection of inventory data.

In phase four, we considered the database PSILCA for the identification of potential hotspots upstream of the value chains.


Findings and contributions
We propose 13 impact subcategories and 27 indicators for the site-specific assessment. We adopt 17 impact subcategories and 47 indicators from PSILCA database for the generic risk assessment. Although the site-specific assessment indicates an overall proactive behavior among wood pulp manufactures, community engagement through access to material resources requires further improvement. The hotspot assessment indicates that human rights issues faced by indigenous people, migration and certified environmental management systems should be the priorities for improving the wood pulp system. Contributions in medium risk hours by country and sector are also presented.