Transition to Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment: Connections with Social Responsibility Tools

Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (SO-LCA) is a methodology that assesses the social and socioeconomic aspects of a company, or a part of it, from a life cycle perspective. According to the Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment and Organizations 2020, which describe its methodological framework, SO-LCA can be applied moving from a company’s previous experience with management, assessment, and certification tools following three pathways. The first one (Pathway 1) is based on previous applications of tools to verify and certify the company’s compliance with social responsibility requirements. This study provides an overview of the links between the social issues assessed in social management and certification tools and the subcategories foreseen by the Guidelines. The aim is to highlight how and to what extent these tools, already used by a company, can support SO-LCA implementation. This study shows that the social themes addressed by the considered tools partly correspond to those foreseen by the Guidelines. Further development will focus on which data acquired in relation to these themes can also be used for SO-LCA.