336
the carbon taxes. In general, the life cycle costing is more used in terms of cost
engineering and it is performed by the industry with a different perspective than the
LCA to calculate the business case of the project/product.
The social impacts are usually considered in the industry at corporate level; this
means that social impacts are assessed per company and/or per each site of the company and usually the evaluation is extended only up to the fi rst tier supplier.
This approach does not allow the integration of the results of the corporate social
performance in the evaluation of a more sustainable component or material. To
integrate the social considerations in the product development process, data on the
social impact of a product life cycle should be collected.
According to the defi nition of UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, the SLCA is
defi ned as the assessment of social performance of a product along its life cycle and
by considering at least fi ve stakeholder groups: workers, customers, local community, society, and value chain actors not including consumers (UNEP/SETAC 2009 ).
The SLCA is the youngest technique among the life cycle thinking approaches, and
even if an UNEP/SETAC guideline and the relative Methodological Sheets (UNEP/
SETAC 2013 ; Benoît-Norris et al. 2011b ) to support LCA users in the implementation have been published, the scientifi c community as well as the industry has not
come to a complete agreement on several crucial points. Challenges of SLCA are:
selection and defi nition of a valid and commonly accepted set of indicators, availability of inventory data at product level, defi nition of pathways from inventory to
the impact assessment, and so on.
A big challenge is the necessity to collect primary data from company and local
communities. The only example of database developed according to the UNEP/
SETAC guideline is the Social Hotspot Database (SHDB) (Benoît-Norris et al.
2011a ). This database uses a Top-Down Input/Output approach to derive the social
hotspot risk at country and sector level. The SHDB project offers an online database
that allows users to browse data on social risks by sector, country, or risk theme.
There are 227 countries and 57 economic sectors to choose from. The data comprehensively addresses social issues on human rights, working conditions, community
impacts and governance issues, via a set of nearly 150 risk indicators grouped
within 22 themes. Examples of sectors covered by the database are transport, transport equipment, motor vehicles and parts, and metal. It is clear that the SHDB can
be used to make a screening on the potential risks of these sectors by country, but
further efforts have to be paid for a primary data collection.
If on one hand, the scientifi c community is still debating the necessity and scientifi c validity of the social assessment at product level, on the other hand the media’s,
NGOs’, and customers’ concern about the consequences of buying a product that is
produced under bad social conditions is increasing.
No specifi c initiative has been made at product level from the automotive sector.
Most of the activities that have been developed are to improve the sustainability and
social performance of the supply chain, by identifying social hotspots. An example
of this initiative was the development of a common sustainability questionnaire
among the OEMs of the automotive sector to screen the sustainability performance
of the suppliers.
M. Traverso et al.
the carbon taxes. In general, the life cycle costing is more used in terms of cost
engineering and it is performed by the industry with a different perspective than the
LCA to calculate the business case of the project/product.
The social impacts are usually considered in the industry at corporate level; this
means that social impacts are assessed per company and/or per each site of the company and usually the evaluation is extended only up to the fi rst tier supplier.
This approach does not allow the integration of the results of the corporate social
performance in the evaluation of a more sustainable component or material. To
integrate the social considerations in the product development process, data on the
social impact of a product life cycle should be collected.
According to the defi nition of UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, the SLCA is
defi ned as the assessment of social performance of a product along its life cycle and
by considering at least fi ve stakeholder groups: workers, customers, local community, society, and value chain actors not including consumers (UNEP/SETAC 2009 ).
The SLCA is the youngest technique among the life cycle thinking approaches, and
even if an UNEP/SETAC guideline and the relative Methodological Sheets (UNEP/
SETAC 2013 ; Benoît-Norris et al. 2011b ) to support LCA users in the implementation have been published, the scientifi c community as well as the industry has not
come to a complete agreement on several crucial points. Challenges of SLCA are:
selection and defi nition of a valid and commonly accepted set of indicators, availability of inventory data at product level, defi nition of pathways from inventory to
the impact assessment, and so on.
A big challenge is the necessity to collect primary data from company and local
communities. The only example of database developed according to the UNEP/
SETAC guideline is the Social Hotspot Database (SHDB) (Benoît-Norris et al.
2011a ). This database uses a Top-Down Input/Output approach to derive the social
hotspot risk at country and sector level. The SHDB project offers an online database
that allows users to browse data on social risks by sector, country, or risk theme.
There are 227 countries and 57 economic sectors to choose from. The data comprehensively addresses social issues on human rights, working conditions, community
impacts and governance issues, via a set of nearly 150 risk indicators grouped
within 22 themes. Examples of sectors covered by the database are transport, transport equipment, motor vehicles and parts, and metal. It is clear that the SHDB can
be used to make a screening on the potential risks of these sectors by country, but
further efforts have to be paid for a primary data collection.
If on one hand, the scientifi c community is still debating the necessity and scientifi c validity of the social assessment at product level, on the other hand the media’s,
NGOs’, and customers’ concern about the consequences of buying a product that is
produced under bad social conditions is increasing.
No specifi c initiative has been made at product level from the automotive sector.
Most of the activities that have been developed are to improve the sustainability and
social performance of the supply chain, by identifying social hotspots. An example
of this initiative was the development of a common sustainability questionnaire
among the OEMs of the automotive sector to screen the sustainability performance
of the suppliers.
M. Traverso et al.