337
The most recent industrial social assessment initiatives that have been developed
at product level are: the Roundtable of Product Social Metrics, Social Metrics for
chemical sector by WBCSD, and case studies conducted on the SLCA of electronics products by the Sustainability Consortium. There are no specifi c initiatives on
the SLCA from the automotive sector.
BMW Group is one of the founding members of the Roundtable of Product
Social Metrics. In 2013, for the fi rst time, a group of companies decided to sit down
together and to defi ne, based on the literature, the ILO Conventions and their strategy in order to develop a common methodology to assess social performance of a
product along its life cycle.
The project is now running the third phase and the main results of the previous
phases are included in the Handbook of Product Social Impact Assessment (Fontes
et al. 2014 ). Six case studies were realized, mainly among the Roundtable members,
to implement and validate the methodology presented in the handbook. This initiative, that also involved BMW Group, shows that the SLCA is a feasible and practicable methodology. The main challenge in its implementation is the necessity to
directly involve the entire supply chain to collect primary social inventory data.
Because these data are very sensitive, a strong cooperation and linking interests
between OEM (requesting the primary data) and each 1-tier supplier (data giver) are
necessary.
This challenge also existed for the environmental LCA 20 or 30 years ago, when
software and databases such as GaBi
® (PE International 2010 ) and SimaPro
® (PRé
Consultants 2013 ) were not available and performing an LCA of a product cost
signifi cant effort in terms of time and money just to collect primary data.
3 Results and Discussion
The long walk to a more sustainable production and consumption is a trip that needs
to be taken by the actors of different sectors in a participatory and harmonized manner. The automotive industry can play a strategic role in creating this partnership
and cooperation and it will affect all sectors connected with the automotive one,
such as metals or electronics. Many challenges still have to be faced in moving
towards a comprehensive life cycle sustainability assessment of a vehicle and some
of them are methodological. A relative harmonized approach is used to assess the
environmental performance of a product along its life cycle according to ISO
14040/44. BMW uses the LCA not only for assessing its vehicles, but as a supporting tool to address choices and decisions along the entire development process,
from product concept creation to the vehicle’s start-of-production. Measurable targets for the full life cycle are identifi ed and established in the earliest stages of the
development process. These are monitored and documented during vehicle development and the results independently certifi ed as requested by the ISO 14040 standard. Therefore the LCA is mainly used as an internal supporting decision-making
tool towards a more sustainable production.
24 Managing Life Cycle Sustainability Aspects in the Automotive Industry
The most recent industrial social assessment initiatives that have been developed
at product level are: the Roundtable of Product Social Metrics, Social Metrics for
chemical sector by WBCSD, and case studies conducted on the SLCA of electronics products by the Sustainability Consortium. There are no specifi c initiatives on
the SLCA from the automotive sector.
BMW Group is one of the founding members of the Roundtable of Product
Social Metrics. In 2013, for the fi rst time, a group of companies decided to sit down
together and to defi ne, based on the literature, the ILO Conventions and their strategy in order to develop a common methodology to assess social performance of a
product along its life cycle.
The project is now running the third phase and the main results of the previous
phases are included in the Handbook of Product Social Impact Assessment (Fontes
et al. 2014 ). Six case studies were realized, mainly among the Roundtable members,
to implement and validate the methodology presented in the handbook. This initiative, that also involved BMW Group, shows that the SLCA is a feasible and practicable methodology. The main challenge in its implementation is the necessity to
directly involve the entire supply chain to collect primary social inventory data.
Because these data are very sensitive, a strong cooperation and linking interests
between OEM (requesting the primary data) and each 1-tier supplier (data giver) are
necessary.
This challenge also existed for the environmental LCA 20 or 30 years ago, when
software and databases such as GaBi
® (PE International 2010 ) and SimaPro
® (PRé
Consultants 2013 ) were not available and performing an LCA of a product cost
signifi cant effort in terms of time and money just to collect primary data.
3 Results and Discussion
The long walk to a more sustainable production and consumption is a trip that needs
to be taken by the actors of different sectors in a participatory and harmonized manner. The automotive industry can play a strategic role in creating this partnership
and cooperation and it will affect all sectors connected with the automotive one,
such as metals or electronics. Many challenges still have to be faced in moving
towards a comprehensive life cycle sustainability assessment of a vehicle and some
of them are methodological. A relative harmonized approach is used to assess the
environmental performance of a product along its life cycle according to ISO
14040/44. BMW uses the LCA not only for assessing its vehicles, but as a supporting tool to address choices and decisions along the entire development process,
from product concept creation to the vehicle’s start-of-production. Measurable targets for the full life cycle are identifi ed and established in the earliest stages of the
development process. These are monitored and documented during vehicle development and the results independently certifi ed as requested by the ISO 14040 standard. Therefore the LCA is mainly used as an internal supporting decision-making
tool towards a more sustainable production.
24 Managing Life Cycle Sustainability Aspects in the Automotive Industry