Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA)

The project ‘Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment’ is a collaboration between Social Life Cycle Alliance and the Life Cycle Initiative. Since the first publication in 2009, providing a map, skeleton, and flashlight to guide stakeholders in the assessment of social and socio-economic impacts of the life cycle of products, the relevance of S-LCA has only increased. A plethora of initiatives promoting value chain due diligence have been positioning social issues as a central concern, for private and public sector actors alike.

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In 2020 a new edition of guidelines was released to assist novices and experts alike. It also addresses Social Organization LCA (SO-LCA), which links social impacts of a product’s consumption and production to the organization’s impacts across the life cycle of a product. These new guidelines were launched during a webinar.

Eight companies from the metals, food, automotive and cosmetic industries provided feedback about the different challenges and benefits of S-LCA, while learning how to integrate S-LCA into product development. Results from the pilot projects were published in 2022.