Abstract
A detailed assessment of the “gate-to-gate” social risks and benefits of Canadian egg production facilities was undertaken based on the United Nations Environment Programme/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment. Data were collected via survey from a representative subset of Canadian egg farms, and evaluated against a novel suite of indicators and performance reference points developed for relevance in the Canadian context. The evaluation focused on interactions with four stakeholder groups (Workers; Local Communities; Value Chain Partners; and Society) in eighteen thematic areas. This assessment resulted in a rich and highly nuanced characterization of the potential social risks and benefits attributable to contemporary egg production facilities in Canada. Overall, risks were low and benefits were identified for Local Communities, Value Chain Partners, and Society stakeholder groups, but mixed for the Workers stakeholder group. With respect to the latter, identified areas of higher risk are related, in particular, to a subset of indicators for Working Hours, Equal Opportunities and Fair Salary. As such, the results suggest opportunities and strategies for the Canadian egg industry both to capitalize on its current successes as well as to proactively engage in improving its social sustainability profile. The study also contributes a novel set of social sustainability metrics for use and continued development in the Canadian egg sector as well as other agri-food sectors in Canada and beyond. The inevitable challenge in social life cycle assessment (LCA) of developing non-arbitrary performance reference points for social indicators for which clear norms do not exist, and similarly for establishing non-arbitrary scales and thresholds for differentiating between performance levels, is underscored. A necessary next step with respect to the methods presented herein is for stakeholder groups to carefully consider and refine the performance reference points and characterization thresholds that have been developed, in order to assess their alignment with context-specific social sustainability priorities for this industry, and also to extend the analysis to encompass other value chain stages to enable a full social life cycle assessment.
Highlights
Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) is the least developed of the three, complementary strands of life cycle assessment, which provide analytical frameworks for life cycle-based sustainability measurement and management [1]
The results include a first set of social science-based benchmarks of Sustainability 2018, 10, 1601 the social benefits and risks attributable to Canadian egg production for the base year 2012. These results offer insights as to key leverage points for further improving the social sustainability performance of egg production in Canada
The goal was to arrive at a nuanced understanding of the current social sustainability profile of egg facilities in Canada, supported by development of an appropriate suite of social sustainability metrics, using data directly collected from industry participants and in correspondence with the Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment [6]
Summary
Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) is the least developed of the three, complementary strands of life cycle assessment, which provide analytical frameworks for life cycle-based sustainability measurement and management [1]. The “Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products” [6] provide the first major step towards consensus methodologies for S-LCA. These guidelines provide “a map, a skeleton, and a flashlight” [7] for implementation of S-LCA studies. In this context, “map” refers to the broad nature of the guidelines and their preliminary nature. Considerable work remains—in particular with respect to developing widely accepted social indicators and impact assessment methods, which may vary by sector/context. The Guidelines are the most widely employed reference document for S-LCA studies [5,9,10]
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