Past and future of Social Life Cycle Assessment: Historical evolution and research trends

Abstract

Social Life Cycle Assessment is presented as a powerful tool for sustainable development, thus, related publications had an important increase along time. This paper aims to analyze 190 articles in Social Life Cycle Assessment, for describing the historical evolution of the method and showing its research trends. To achieve this purpose, a literature review and bibliometric analysis were conducted, besides, two visual maps were constructed to show the research trends. Results show that application cases in Social life cycle assessment are the most applied type of study. Considering the historical evolution, four stages were distinguished: the first steps toward Social life cycle assessment (1996–2009), the uncertainty years (2009–2012), the development years (2013–2016) and the search for standardization (2017-onward). After more than two decades, actually SLCA is in its best era, however, there is still a long way ahead to achieve its scientific maturity. Moreover, the main Social life cycle assessment approaches, and frameworks for social life cycle impact assessment and quantification of social impacts were analyzed, as well as, the use of databases. In that sense, as trends show, the Social Hotspot Database (as database) and the Subcategory Assessment Method (as framework for social life cycle impact assessment) stand out, highlighting the importance of the use of databases and specific frameworks for impact assessment in order to achieve the standardization of this technique. Trends also show that studies of Social life cycle assessment in bioeconomy are in vogue, reflecting that the trends in ‘general’ sustainability science repeats in social sustainability as well. Hence, it is highly recommended to research on that theme.