Advancing Social Life Cycle Assessment: A Novel Approach to Uncertainty Analysis.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Social Science
• Materials Science

Background:

• Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) is crucial for evaluating social risks in value chains.
• Existing S-LCA studies often overlook uncertainty in characterization factors, a key limitation in social risk modeling.
• This uncertainty stems from inherent variability in social indicators and expert assessments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the literature gap by proposing an uncertainty analysis methodology for S-LCA.
• To explicitly model and account for uncertainty associated with characterization factors in S-LCA.
• To assess the social performance of components using conventional versus innovative materials, considering uncertainty.

Main Methods:

• Developed and applied a novel uncertainty analysis methodology within the S-LCA framework.
• Integrated uncertainty modeling directly into the characterization factors of S-LCA models.
• Evaluated the social performance of a car dashboard and a ship counter bar using conventional (ABS, reinforced gypsum) and cellulose-based materials.

Main Results:

• The proposed methodology is easily applicable to diverse case studies.
• Cellulose-based materials showed significantly lower potential social impacts for ship counter bars compared to conventional materials.
• For car dashboards, cellulose-based materials consistently showed higher potential social impacts than conventional materials, a finding robust to uncertainty.

Conclusions:

• The study successfully integrated uncertainty modeling into S-LCA, enhancing transparency and interpretability.
• The findings highlight material-specific social performance variations influenced by value chain context.
• The approach quantifies confidence in comparisons, strengthening the reliability of social performance evaluations.