A Review of Social Challenges of Green Hydrogen Economy and Its Realization Toward Sustainable Development Goals

With climate change, stringent carbon reduction targets, and energy security concerns in the face of recent war conflicts, hydrogen has emerged as one of the world’s biggest game changers due to its enormous potential to decarbonize the world’s energy, transportation, and industrial sectors. In this work, several social challenges are highlighted which are the main roadblocks to large-scale deployment of green hydrogen economy around the world. In light of the existing literature, it is clear that the research needs to be intensified mainly on two fronts: a growing acceptance of green hydrogen economies among various sectors of society, including investors, industries, and consumers, as well as the development of a policy framework that integrates all stakeholders involved in green hydrogen technology in order to reduce the number of sociopolitical conflicts. Furthermore, to ensure a large-scale deployment of green hydrogen economy that not only supports in climate action targets but also highlights the impact on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) of green hydrogen production is performed. The results of the S-LCA shows that green hydrogen possesses a medium to high level risk to several SGDs. However, more research work is recommended in the area of S-LCA of green hydrogen value chain to enable detailed insights to all potential social indicators in the manufacturing sector of the renewable energy equipment.