Perspectives on Social LCA (eBook)

This book gives a selection of contributions from the 6^th Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA)  Conference in Pescara, Italy. S-LCA is a social (real and potential) impact assessment method that aims to drive improvements in order to increase the value of products and services. It helps organizations to plan better, implement more effectively, and promote scale initiatives. More in general, the assessment activity also facilitates accountability and supports stakeholder communication.

Consumers are greatly aware of the provenance of the goods they purchase. They have greater access to product information than ever before, also thanks to the new digital platforms. They are also empowered to make more responsible purchase decisions about what concerns sustainability aspects. Therefore the need to linger on the social aspects has been emerging recently. Although the business evolution of environmental methods and metrics has advanced significantly over the past decades, tools and metrics to estimate the social aspects of products and services are in progress.

In this volume several sections provide methodological developments and tool focus, contextualizing S-LCA scientifically and explore the fields of applications. Through current development (conferences, articles, seminars and industry group publications), the method is spreading, evolving and gaining in maturity. However, it still is an evolving field, and main developments foresee, both at the level of methodology and results, interpretation and communication in order to find a path forward. S-LCA has been changing since the beginnings. From our observations as educators, researchers, practitioners, and peer reviewers in the S-LCA community, there are trends that are of importance us. 

Marzia Traverso, full professor and head of the Institute and Chair of Sustainability in Civil Engineering at RWTH Aachen University since 1 June 2017. PhD of Environmental Technical Physics of University of Palermo, and environmental engineer, working in the field of Life Cycle Assessment and sustainability performance of building, textile and transport sector. From May 2016 to April 2017 Scientific Officer at European Commission, JRC Seville in Product Bureau, responsible of the development of criteria for GPP on Street Lighting and Traffic signals, GPP of Transport and Framework for Building Sector. From Nov. 2011 to March 2016, she was project manager at the research and innovation centre of BMW Group. She was responsible of the sustainability performance and LCA of several cars, such as: BMW i3, BMW i8, 7series. From August 2008 to October 2011, she was post doc. scientific assistant and lecturer at the Chair of Sustainability Engineering of Technische Universitaet Berlin, main research topics were the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment and Social Life Cycle Assessment. Author and reviewer of several scientific papers in journals such as Sustainability, Int. Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, Industrial Ecology. Subject editor in Social life cycle Assessment in the Int. Journal of LCA and member of editorial board of the 'Sustainable Development' journal. Member of the Steering committee of Social LC Alliance and Italian Network of LCA and coordinator there for the working group of Social Life Cycle Assessment. Founder of a no-profit organization Information for Sustainable Development (iSuD). 

Luigia Petti, Associate Professor at the Department of Economic Studies, University 'G. d'Annunzio' (UdA), Pescara (Italy) since 2002. Her research interests include: methodology and implementation of Environmental Management Tools, such as: Life Cycle Assessment (and simplified life-cycle-based tools), Quality Function Deployment for Environment, Ecolabelling, POEMS and Social LCA. She has published various papers on issues related to different sectors, such as agri-food, tourism, textile, etc. She has been teaching Environmental & Certification Management Systems and Quality management theory & practice at UdA. She took part in agreements with the Tokyo University, the UTFP University of Brazil, the IRSTEA Institute of France, and others. In 2005, she obtained the certification for teaching in the Ecolabel School of Chieti, where she taught Ecolabelling in touristic accommodation. Since 2007, she has participated in working groups on 'LCA Tourism', 'Agri-food sector', 'Social LCA' in the framework of the Italian LCA Network. She is author of more than 130 pubblications and reviewer for several Scientific Journals. She is member of the Social LCA Alliance and coordinator of the working group on Goal & Scope Definition.

Alessandra Zamagni, degree in Environmental Engineer, PhD in Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis. Since 2003 she has been working on LCA applied to new technologies, LCI data quality, environmental footprints (products and organisations), life cycle-based methods for sustainability, consequential LCA, social LCA, life cycle-based methodologies for Green Public Procurement, both in European funded projects and within companies. He takes part into the PEF Technical Secretariat of the Pilot on hot and cold water piping system, as external consultant, and she is appointed as external independent reviewer for LCA and PEF studies and datasets. She is appointed expert by the European Commission as reviewer of the ILCD Handbook, by international organisations (US EPA; UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiatives), and international companies, and she is reviewer of several scientific journals. She was co-chair of the SETAC Europe LCA Steering Committee (2011-2014) and member of the SETAC Global Coordination Group on LCA (2008-2014). She participated as invited expert to the SATORI dialogue event, Stakeholders views on Ethics Assessment of Research and Innovation in 2016. She is Subject Editor of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment for the area Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment; Member of the Scientific Committee of several international conferences in the field of LCA and Social LCA; chair and co-chair of international conferences on LCA and Social LCA. Advisor on SLCA for companies, since 2015 she is member of the committee of the Italian Network on LCA. She is member of the Social LCA Alliance, and coordinator of the working group on review criteria for Social LCA studies.