Social Life Cycle Analysis of Textile Industry Impacts for Greater Social Sustainability of Global Supply Chains

Abstract

Solutions will be effective if they are aligned with the problems that they are trying to solve. This paper studied the most relevant social impacts of the textile industry and how appropriately textile companies manage these social impacts, in order to achieve greater social sustainability in global supply chains. Therefore, we attempted to determine whether companies belonging to the textile product lifecycle identify and manage social impacts in keeping with the most relevant social hotspots in the supply chain of the textile industry. A consistency analysis was conducted based on the management of social indicators at the company level (identified through the analysis of contents of their sustainability reporting) connected with social impact categories defined in the Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of products provided by the United Nations Environment Programme, and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, and on the technical results obtained by the textile sector through the Social Hotspots Database. The results showed a predominant inconsistency between the main social hotspots of the textile industry showed in the footprint analysis and the social indicators specifically reported by the sector. This paper contributes to the literature about what sustainability management implies along global supply chains, emphasizing the need to advance in a consistent and science-based integration of social hotspots at the sectoral level and social management practices at the company level. In addition, the study could be relevant for companies belonging to complex and global supply chains, since it contributes towards enhancing the knowledge of science-based methodologies, as social life cycle assessments, for identifying, managing, and reporting their social hotspots.