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Purpose <p>Social aspects are increasingly recognized as a standard component of sustainability. Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) is a technique to address this. The analysis of social acceptance points in a similar direction and is, among others, important to develop socially responsible products – but can they go hand in hand? This research explores the relationship between S-LCA and social acceptance in literature. The fundamentals of a framework are developed to beneficially combine S-LCA and social acceptance.</p> Methods <p>To be able to examine the fundamentals, similarities and differences of S-LCA and social acceptance are outlined. This includes goals, definitions, and methodological aspects in addition to stakeholders, data, scope etc. Within a systematic literature review, publications addressing both S-LCA and the concept of social acceptance are identified and assigned to four groups. These different relationships include publications with either no statement or relationship, unclear relationship, the integration of social acceptance into S-LCA or vice versa.</p> Results and discussion <p>The results indicate that the number of publications, predominantly from Europe, has increased in recent years. Publications frequently focus on the construction and wastewater sectors. The majority of assessed publications integrate social acceptance into S-LCA by establishing new impact categories, etc. however, only half of them are consistent with the S-LCA logic. An interpretation of social acceptance in alignment with S-LCA for this study, including methodological aspects, is presented. The discussion includes, among others, suggested approaches for further combinations of S-LCA and social acceptance, i.e. whether S-LCA can function as a communication tool and serve as a secondary data source for social acceptance analysis. It also includes the approach to combine data collection and to assess the discrepancy between their results.</p> Conclusions <p>The findings of this research provide fundamentals for the development of frameworks for integrating S-LCA and social acceptance. This includes insights in general, as well as into both the practically implemented and theoretically conceivable ways of combining them. The identified practice within literature integrates social acceptance into S-LCA. The results conclude that S-LCA and social acceptance could go hand in hand. This is exceeded by discussions of additional approaches, which are to be tested in future case studies.</p>

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Social Life Cycle Assessment and Social Acceptance – Can they go hand in hand?

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月29日

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  • Sally K. Springer,
  • Christina Wulf,
  • Petra Zapp

摘要

Purpose

Social aspects are increasingly recognized as a standard component of sustainability. Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) is a technique to address this. The analysis of social acceptance points in a similar direction and is, among others, important to develop socially responsible products – but can they go hand in hand? This research explores the relationship between S-LCA and social acceptance in literature. The fundamentals of a framework are developed to beneficially combine S-LCA and social acceptance.

Methods

To be able to examine the fundamentals, similarities and differences of S-LCA and social acceptance are outlined. This includes goals, definitions, and methodological aspects in addition to stakeholders, data, scope etc. Within a systematic literature review, publications addressing both S-LCA and the concept of social acceptance are identified and assigned to four groups. These different relationships include publications with either no statement or relationship, unclear relationship, the integration of social acceptance into S-LCA or vice versa.

Results and discussion

The results indicate that the number of publications, predominantly from Europe, has increased in recent years. Publications frequently focus on the construction and wastewater sectors. The majority of assessed publications integrate social acceptance into S-LCA by establishing new impact categories, etc. however, only half of them are consistent with the S-LCA logic. An interpretation of social acceptance in alignment with S-LCA for this study, including methodological aspects, is presented. The discussion includes, among others, suggested approaches for further combinations of S-LCA and social acceptance, i.e. whether S-LCA can function as a communication tool and serve as a secondary data source for social acceptance analysis. It also includes the approach to combine data collection and to assess the discrepancy between their results.

Conclusions

The findings of this research provide fundamentals for the development of frameworks for integrating S-LCA and social acceptance. This includes insights in general, as well as into both the practically implemented and theoretically conceivable ways of combining them. The identified practice within literature integrates social acceptance into S-LCA. The results conclude that S-LCA and social acceptance could go hand in hand. This is exceeded by discussions of additional approaches, which are to be tested in future case studies.