How assessment criteria and indicators are defined and selected in Social LCA: a literature review

Despite research since 2000 and the publication of Guidelines for the Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products (S-LCA) (Benoît and Mazijn 2009) as a framework for the application of S-LCA, several methodological challenges... [ view full abstract ]

Despite research since 2000 and the publication of Guidelines for the Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products (S-LCA) (Benoît and Mazijn 2009) as a framework for the application of S-LCA, several methodological challenges remain for S-LCA. These challenges include the setting of system boundaries, matching the method to the LCA framework, the coverage of the assessment in terms of criteria, and the effective assessment of impacts.
Much attention has been paid to how performances or impacts should be measured (i.e. life-cycle impact assessment phase), or are measured in existing S-LCA studies (Parent et al. 2010; Wu et al. 2014; Chhipi-Shrestha et al. 2014), but there remain some issues to be addressed regarding what is to be assessed. In any assessment it is necessary to set a framework including assessment criteria, i.e. variables which serve to enable a judgment to be made over the object to be assessed, and the indicators to be used to measure and assess the criteria (Lairez et al. 2015). We propose here to address these issues for S-LCA.
A literature review is conducted below aimed at understanding how the criteria to be assessed and corresponding indicators are selected in different S-LCA frameworks and case studies. First, various general S-LCA frameworks are reviewed. Next, according to how the criteria and indicators (C&I) are defined, these frameworks are characterized and classified. S-LCA case studies with a focus on food and agricultural products are then reviewed and analyzed, by identifying which S-LCA framework is used. Finally, it is verified whether these studies adapted the C&I proposed by the S-LCA framework used, and, if so, how.