Page 70 - Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

Triple bottom line, sustainability and sustainability assessment, an overview 63

both bioeconomy and circular economy may imply environmental burdens
if an integrated assessment encompassing all life cycle stages of production
and consumption is note performed to unveil trade-offs. From the trade-offs
analysis, solutions to maximize benefits could be designed.

5 Social sustainability

Social welfare is considered one of the main development goals of modern
society. Understanding and assessing what could improve or undermine
well-being is a key element in public policies, aiming at ensuring social
and economic benefits while reducing both social and environmental
impacts. The appraisal of social impacts and benefit is very difficult and con-
troversial as cultural elements, different values, and lifestyles may affect the
way social issues are perceived. Regarding product policies, social impacts
along supply chains are increasingly assessed by different stakeholders, such
as governments, businesses, and NGOs. To assess impact along supply
chains, life cycle-based methodologies have been developed over time.
Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) integrates traditional life cycle assess-
ment methodological steps while having social impacts as focus. Coupling
the assessment of environmental and socioeconomic issues may support
more comprehensive sustainability assessment of impacts, benefits, and
related trade-offs. Social sustainability may be assessed using a variety of
methods and indicators, such as the social footprint, social impact assessment,
or well-being indices.
Compared to environmental LCA, social LCA is still in an infant stage
(Sala et al., 2015b). However, the basic methodological principles and steps
are the same and are illustrated in Fig. 3.4.
The UNEP guidelines on social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) (UNEP,
2009) present key elements to consider for product-level, life cycle-based
social sustainability assessment. This includes guidance for the goal and scope
definition, inventory, impact assessment, and interpretation phases of
S-LCA. Methods for and studies of the broader scale, life cycle social dimen-
sions of production and consumption are largely unavailable to date.
Pelletier et al. (2018), for example, assessed social risks associated with
trade-based consumption in EU Member States using a life cycle-based
approach compared to a non life cycle-based approach in order to assess
the value added of life cycle thinking and assessment in this context.
Social LCA studies on biofuels exist (e.g., Macombe et al., 2013; Ekener-
Petersen et al., 2014; Interlenghi et al., 2017).