Social organizational life cycle assessment

Manuela D’Eusanio

Chapter 156 in Elgar Encyclopedia of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment, 2026, pp 578-582 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (SO-LCA) is a methodology to assess the social aspects related to an organization by considering their performed activities along the entire value chain. SO-LCA extends the product perspective of Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) to a more comprehensive view of the organization, assessing the entire organization or part of it (e.g. facilities, geographical area, brands). SO-LCA can be considered as a streamlined approach compared to S-LCA from the perspective of an organization, by overcoming some of the main challenges of S-LCA (e.g. identification of the Functional Unit, allocation of indicators or impact to product level). SO-LCA and S-LCA share several methodological similarities, despite differing at the conceptual level due to their respective scopes of analysis (i.e., focusing on organization and product, respectively). Indeed, SO-LCA adopts a stakeholder perspective, considering potential social impacts on various stakeholder categories (i.e. workers, local communities, society, consumers, value chain actors, and children), which can affect or be affected by the organization's activities. SO-LCA can also be considered complementary to Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA), which provides the methodological approach for assessing the organization from a life cycle perspective. The methodological framework of SO-LCA has been outlined in the Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment and it is the result of the combination of those of S-LCA and O-LCA. SO-LCA was introduced for supporting academics and industrial practitioners during the decision-making process regarding the social sustainability of the organization and/or value chain. This is made possible by the inclusion of social inventory indicators at the organizational and/or national level, which can be more readily gathered compared to those at the product level in S-LCA.

Keywords: Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (SO-LCA); Stakeholder perspective; Value chain; Social sustainability; Methodological framework; Impact assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035309887
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