Social impacts and life cycle assessment: proposals for methodological development for SMEs in the European food and drink sector

Purpose: Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for 99 % of companies operating in the European food and drink industry and, often, are part of highly fragmented and complex food chains. The article focuses on the development of a social impact assessment methodology for SMEs in selected food and drink products as part of the EU-FP7 SENSE research project. The proposed methodology employs a top-down and bottom-up approach and focuses on labour rights/working conditions along the product supply chain as the key social impact indicator, limiting key stakeholder classification to workers/employees and local communities impacted by the production process. Problems related to this emerging field are discussed, and questions for further research are expounded. Methods: The article reviews both academic and 'grey' literature on life cycle assessment (LCA) and its relationship to social LCA (S-LCA) and SMEs at the beginning of 2013 and includes case study evidence from the food sector. A pilot questionnaire survey sent to European food and drink sector SMEs and trade associations (as partners in the research project) about their knowledge, experience and engagement with social impacts is presented. Proposals are elaborated for a social impact assessment methodology that identifies the key data for SMEs to collect. Results and discussion: The literature reveals the complexity of the S-LCA approach as it aims to unite disparate and often conflicting interests. Findings from the pilot questionnaire are discussed. Using a top-down and bottom-up approach, the proposed methodology assesses data from SMEs along the supply chain in order to gauge social improvements in the management of labour-related issues for different product sectors. Issues relating to the 'attributional' choice of a social impact indicator and key stakeholder categories are discussed. How 'scoring' is interpreted and reported and what the intended effect of its use will be are also elaborated upon. Conclusions: Whilst recognising the difficulty of devising a robust social impact assessment for SMEs in the food and drink sector, it is argued that the proposed methodology makes a useful contribution in this fast-emerging field

Diverse perspectives on interdisciplinarity from the Members of the College of the Royal Society of Canada

Various multiple-disciplinary terms and concepts (although most commonly “interdisciplinarity”, which is used herein) are used to frame education, scholarship, research, and interactions within and outside academia. In principle, the premise of interdisciplinarity may appear to have many strengths; yet, the extent to which interdisciplinarity is embraced by the current generation of academics, the benefits and risks for doing so, and the barriers and facilitators to achieving interdisciplinarity represent inherent challenges. Much has been written on the topic of interdisciplinarity, but to our knowledge there have been few attempts to consider and present diverse perspectives from scholars, artists, and scientists in a cohesive manner. As a team of 57 members from the Canadian College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada (the College) who self-identify as being engaged or interested in interdisciplinarity, we provide diverse intellectual, cultural, and social perspectives. The goal of this paper is to share our collective wisdom on this topic with the broader community and to stimulate discourse and debate on the merits and challenges associated with interdisciplinarity. Perhaps the clearest message emerging from this exercise is that working across established boundaries of scholarly communities is rewarding, necessary, and is more likely to result in impact. However, there are barriers that limit the ease with which this can occur (e.g., lack of institutional structures and funding to facilitate cross-disciplinary exploration). Occasionally, there can be significant risk associated with doing interdisciplinary work (e.g., lack of adequate measurement or recognition of work by disciplinary peers). Solving many of the world’s complex and pressing problems (e.g., climate change, sustainable agriculture, the burden of chronic disease, and aging populations) demand thinking and working across long-standing, but in some ways restrictive, academic boundaries. Academic institutions and key support structures, especially funding bodies, will play an important role in helping to realize what is readily apparent to all who contributed to this paper—that interdisciplinarity is essential for solving complex problems; it is the new norm. Failure to empower and encourage those doing this research will serve as a great impediment to training, knowledge, and addressing societal issues

Discourse and religion in educational practice

Despite the existence of long-held binaries between secular and sacred, private and public spaces, school and religious literacies in many contemporary societies, the significance of religion and its relationship to education and society more broadly has become increasingly topical. Yet, it is only recently that the investigation of the nexus of discourse and religion in educational practice has started to receive some scholarly attention. In this chapter, religion is understood as a cultural practice, historically situated and embedded in specific local and global contexts. This view of religion stresses the social alongside the subjective or experiential dimensions. It explores how through active participation and apprenticeship in culturally appropriate practices and behaviors often mediated intergenerationally and the mobilisation of linguistic and other semiotic resources but also affective, social and material resources, membership in religious communities is constructed and affirmed. The chapter reviews research strands that have explored different aspects of discourse and religion in educational practice as a growing interdisciplinary field. Research strands have examined the place and purpose of religion in general and evangelical Christianity in particular in English Language Teaching (ELT) programmes and the interplay of religion and teaching and learning in a wide range of religious and increasingly secular educational contexts. They provide useful insights for scholars of discourse studies to issues of identity, socialisation, pedagogy and language policy

Providing Social Risk and Opportunity Information for Product Category Supply Chains Utilizing the Social Hotspot Database: Findings from Seven Studies

The analysis of social impacts of product supply chains is receiving substantial interest from corporations and their stakeholders. Social LCA is a technique that allows for the generation, organization, assessment and communication of product life cycles’ social impacts. The Social Hotspots Database provides a three layered system to assess the potential social risks and opportunities associated with product life cycles. The system was used to carry out social scoping assessments on seven product categories for The Sustainability Consortium. This article summarizes the methodology and discusses the main findings generated by the application of the system and database

Providing Social Risk and Opportunity Information for Product Category Supply Chains Utilizing the Social Hotspot Database: Findings from Seven Studies

The analysis of social impacts of product supply chains is receiving substantial interest from corporations and their stakeholders. Social LCA is a technique that allows for the generation, organization, assessment and communication of product life cycles’ social impacts. The Social Hotspots Database provides a three layered system to assess the potential social risks and opportunities associated with product life cycles. The system was used to carry out social scoping assessments on seven product categories for The Sustainability Consortium. This article summarizes the methodology and discusses the main findings generated by the application of the system and database

Visualizing Social Issues in Supply Chains Using The Social Hotspot Database

Companies benefit greatly from streamlined models and tools that can be used to mine for data and prioritize issues regarding the potential impacts of their operations and products. Guided by the wellestablished fields of Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Corporate Social Responsibility, Social LCA is a developing technique that allows for the generation, organization, assessment and communication of product life cycles’ social impacts. As a precursor to a full Social LCA study, Social Hotspots can be identified through the use of a generic (i.e., top-down) database of country and sector-level social issues relative to the share of worker hours in the supply chain. Over the last three years, researchers at New Earth constructed such a prioritization tool, called The Social Hotspot Database (SHDB, www.socialhotspot.org). The SHDB system includes a Global Input-Output (IO) model derived from GTAP that is used to visualize product supply chains by Country-specific Sector (CSS). From the GTAP IO data on payment of wages to workers, a Worker Hours Model was created with wage rate data (obtained primarily from the International Labor Organization and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. This Worker Hours Model is then used to rank CSS within the supply chain of a product category by labor intensity. Those with the highest share of worker hours are considered first for potential Social Hotspots using the SHDB’s Social Theme Tables. These tables are populated with quantitative and qualitative indicators by country, and sector when relevant, that are characterized for their level of risk that the specific social issue is present. By testing the CSS with the greatest share of worker hours and other relevant CSS in the supply chain with the SHDB Social Theme Tables, it is possible to prioritize places in the supply chain that warrant a closer (site-specific) investigation. The paper will present an overview of the SHDB development methodology, including a detailed description of two of the Social Theme Tables, and highlight future advancements

Efficient Assessment of Social Hotspots in the Supply Chains of 100 Product Categories Using the Social Hotspots Database

Data collection, or the inventory step, is often the most labor-intensive phase of any Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study. The S-LCA Guidelines and numerous authors have recommended generic assessment in this first phase of an S-LCA. In an effort to identify the social hotspots in the supply chains of 100 product categories during just a few months’ time, adopting a streamlined approach was essential. The Social Hotspots Database system was developed by New Earth over 5 years. It includes a Global Input Output (IO) model derived from the Global Trade Analysis Project, a Worker Hours Model constructed using annual wage payments and wage rates by country and sector, and Social Theme Tables covering 22 themes within five Social Impact Categories—Labor Rights and Decent Work, Health and Safety, Human Rights, Governance and Community Impacts. The data tables identify social risks for over 100 indicators. Both the ranking of worker hour intensity and the risk levels across multiple social themes for the Country Specific Sectors (CSS) within a product category supply chain are used to calculate Social Hotspots Indexes (SHI) using an additive weighting method. The CSS with the highest SHI are highlighted as social hotspots within the supply chain of the product in question. This system was tested in seven case studies in 2011. In order to further limit the number of hotspots, a set of prioritization rules was applied. This paper will review the method implemented to study the social hotspots of the 100 product categories and provide one detailed example. Limitations of the approach and recommended research avenues will be outlined