Social Life Cycle Assessment of Italian Olive Growing: Comparison Between Conventional and Agroecological Practices

Agroecology evolved, in the last decades, to a transdisciplinary science merging agronomy, ecology and socio-economic sciences. The basic assumption of agroecology is therefore that we can only overcome this challenge if we tackle it on three different fronts simultaneously. The social dimension often strives to receive the same consideration is sustainability assessments. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology to assess the social impact of agroecological practices applied to olive growing, which represents the most important permanent cultivation in Italy, the second producer of olives in the world. A quantitative methodology has been applied to fulfil this purpose, i.e. the psychosocial risk factor impact pathway within the framework of Social Life Cycle Assessment.