Social Life Cycle Assessment in Biobased Industries: Identifying Main Indicators and Impacts

peer reviewedAssessing social impacts of various products, services and human activities has achieved an increasing interest worldwide. The nature of sustainability of biobased industries from a social point of view is how and to what extent they are perceived by society, and how various societies take advantages from such activities. However, an important issue is that social factors are not usually easy to be quantitatively analyzed and although the social impacts might be very remarkable, especially at the local scale, they have been not possible to be investigated in the majority of impact evaluations in the past. Despite the existence of many different methodologies towards Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) to address social impacts of various businesses and industries, most of them impartially address social performances of an industry. The aim of this paper is to highlight the main criteria that need to be taken into account in SLCA approaches for identifying the social indicators and impacts of biobased industries that is a timely topic worldwide toward climate change mitigation goals. Accordingly, considering the general approach of SLCA and particularly its inventory analysis phase for impact categories and indicator determinations, the paper provides an overview of the existing guidelines and frameworks for identifying social indicators and impact categories associated with bio-industries. In conclusion, main impact categories and indicators formulated in the existing frameworks applied to biobased industries are demonstrated as a basic set of applicable elements of social dimensions in evaluating bio-industries’ sustainability when conducting SLCAs. The state of the art for this study mainly includes leading journal articles, international reports and conference papers up to and including 2016 on SLCA in biobased industries. According to the reviewed frameworks in this study, quantitative, midpoint and site-specific data are the main elements taken into account when collecting the data for biobased product social impact assessment. This study also reveals that although SLCA is in its early steps of development and despite in numerous cases, conducting a comprehensive SLCA is not yet feasible, it has been considered to have substantially promising methodological attributes that can help policymakers and other stakeholders to quantify and assess sustainability of bio-industries from the social perspective. Recommendations for further research work concerning SLCA in bio-industries are also presented

Integrating social aspects into sustainability assessment of biobased industries: Towards a systemic approach

peer reviewedConsidering its potential impacts on development, biobased industries require to be assessed according to the positive and negative effects they can bring to the society. Typically, the implications of biobased industries are considered in terms of economic, environmental and technical indices while social factors are usually neglected in the majority of impact assessments. This is mainly due to the fact that social issues are not easy to be quantitatively analyzed, measured and monitored. Indeed, the following issues need to be addressed: (i) how the social dimension is understood from different stakeholders’ perspective; (ii) how the social pillar can be properly integrated into sustainability evaluation methodologies which are mainly focused on environmental performance and (techno)-economic assessments of biobased industries. This review paper aims to answer these questions firstly through identifying the main social impacts and indicators of the biobased industries at local level in order to find an answer for the second question by analyzing and comparing the current methodologies for assessing social impacts in bioindustries. These methods mainly include Social Impact Assessment (SIA), Socio-economic Impacts Assessment (SEIA) and Social Life Cycle Analysis (SLCA). The latter, although is in its early steps of development, has been considered to have substantially promising methodological attributes for bioindustries’ social sustainability assessment. Although ongoing research tackles the incorporation of the environmental dimension into extended techno-economic assessments, no integration of the social pillar into such assessments has been made. Given that, this review focuses on the social dimension for integrated sustainability assessments of biobased industries to assess the main social impacts resulting from each operation or from the bioenergy sector. The current review focuses on the importance of social sustainability indicators and evaluation techniques. By discussing the methodologies for evaluating social impacts, a systemic methodology for assessing and integrating the social dimension into the sustainability assessments of bioindustries is developed, considering the four main iterative steps of an SLCA framework and three useful SLCA-based approaches including Product Social Impact Assessment; Prosuite and the UNEP SETAC Guidelines for SLCA of Products. It is concluded that the term systemic analysis implies that the whole approach needs the capacity to understand different subsystems and relations between them. Accordingly, the systemic assessment of biobased technologies should simultaneously include technological, economic, social and environmental dimensions. The result of this study identifies social impacts in the bioeconomy and particularly highlight the importance of considering social issues in biobased industries’ design and innovation

Ecotourism sustainable development strategies using SWOT and QSPM model: A case study of Kaji Namakzar Wetland, South Khorasan Province, Iran

peer reviewedEvaluating the current situation of ecotourism in Kaji Namakzar Wetland in South Khorasan Province, Iran and offering strategies for its sustainable development are the main objectives of this study. To this end, different decision making tools were used including questionnaires and interviews with experts, local residents and visitors of the wetland. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) and quantitative strategic planning matrix (QSPM) analysis techniques were conducted to identify the required management strategies. Results showed that the existing ecotourism activities within the wetland are not in line with the sustainability requirements. Although the result of the present study showed that KNW has an unsustainable situation with regard to its current management strategies, if authorities take its great opportunities and strengths more into consideration, it can have positive effects on developing sustainable strategies to increase ecotourism activities in the region and to reduce the adverse effects on the environment

Evolution of land use-change modeling: routes of different schools of knowledge

peer reviewedAlthough much has been published on land use-change models (LUCMs), no study has comprehensively dealt with the evolution of land use models based on schools of knowledge. The primary objective of this paper is an explanation of the progress and growth of LUCMs concerning their main ontological, epistemological, and methodological origins. Five main paradigms, i.e., positivism, post-positivism, constructivism, participatory, and pragmatism approaches, are discussed in order to assess the current orientations of LUCMs. Given the complexities of LUCM components, the study concludes that one paradigm cannot adequately address all methodological aspects. Accordingly, it is necessary to combine quantitative and qualitative paradigms to create mixed-method approaches within a systemic framework. Such systemic approaches could shape the most probable future generations of LUCMs, which would be able to cope with the complexity of various subsystems, including biophysical and socioeconomic ones

Combining Monte Carlo simulations and experimental design for incorporating risk and uncertainty in investment decisions for cleantech: a fast pyrolysis case study

The value of phytoextracting crops (plants cultivated for soil remediation) depends on the pro tability of the sequential investment in a conversion technology aimed at the economic valorization of the plants. However, the net present value (NPV) of an investment in such an innovative technology is risky due to technical and economic uncertainties. Therefore, decision makers want to dispose of information about the probability of a positive NPV, the largest possible loss, and the crucial economic and technical parameters in uencing the NPV. This paper maps the total uncertainty in the NPV of an investment in fast pyrolysis for the production of combined heat and power from willow cultivated for phytoextraction in the Belgian Campine. The probability of a positive NPV has been calculated by performing Monte Carlo simulations. Informa- tion about possible losses has been provided by means of experimental design. Both methods are then combined in order to identify the key economic and technical parameters in uencing the project’s pro tability. It appears that the case study has a chance of 87% of generating a positive NPV with an expected value of 3 million euro (MEUR), while worst-case scenarios predict possible losses of 7 MEUR. The amount of arable land, the biomass yield, the purchase price of the crop, the policy support, and the product yield of fast pyrolysis are identi ed as the most in uential parameters. It is concluded that both methods, i.e., Monte Carlo simulations and experimental design, provide decision makers with complementary information with regard to economic risk

Understanding communicational behavior among rangelands' stakeholders : application of social network analysis

Understanding communicational behavior of rangelands' stakeholders is fundamental for effective development of rangeland management plans. This study aimed to understand differences between stakeholders' relations among various actors involved in rangeland management using social network analysis (SNA). A survey was conducted on 334 stakeholders (89 extension agents, 110 researchers and 135 executive agents) in the Tehran province, Iran. Results showed that all the three groups of stakeholders are interested in making contact mainly within their own group. Furthermore, while the executive agents have shared the strongest technical and friendship relations with the two other groups, the extension agents established the strongest administrative interactions. The researchers, however, made a poor link especially with the extension agents. The study concluded that SNA could be an efficient tool to assess communicational behavior in rangeland management

Integrating Social Aspect into Sustainability Assessment of Bio-Based Industries: Towards a Systemic Approach

peer reviewedBiobased industries require to be assessed on their positive and negative impacts on sustainable development. However, social factors are usually neglected in the majority of impact assessments of biobased industries: they are mainly focused on environmental performance and (techno)- economic assessments. This review proposes a new systemic approach for assessing and integrating the social dimension into sustainability assessments of biobased industries. First the main methodologies for assessing social impacts in biobased industries are compared. Social Life Cycle Analysis (SLCA) is considered to have promising methodological attributes for biobased industries’ social sustainability assessment, although it is still in its early steps of development. Second, a new systemic framework was developed following the four main iterative steps of an SLCA framework and based on three useful SLCA-based approaches including Product Social Impact Assessment; Prosuite and the UNEP SETAC Guidelines for SLCA of Products. The proposed framework allows incorporating the social impacts into a techno economic assessments (TEA) model through providing both a final social score and separate scores for each indicator category and life cycle phase. The result of this study particularly highlights the importance of considering social issues in biobased industries’design and innovation. Using the proposed systemic approach, industry and policy makers gain a better insight into the full sustainability performance (i.e. including social aspects) of biobased industries

Agricultural land conversion: Reviewing drought impacts and coping strategies

This paper aims to review the impacts of drought on agricultural land conversion (ALC) on the one hand and the impacts of ALC on intensifying drought on the other. The paper further investigates coping strategies at three levels; i.e., micro (local), meso (national), and macro (international), in order to mitigate drought impacts that are classified as economic, social, and environmental. This paper shows that ALC, drought and coping strategies are in a reciprocal relationship and can have either a positive or negative influence on each other. The paper concludes that the complex and multidimensional nature of drought requires the development of an integrated approach that focuses on the governments’ collaboration with different stakeholders. Such an integrated approach can improve drought risk management implementations, decrease vulnerability and construct resilience and coping capacity at all levels in order to deal with droughts