Twentieth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

No matter how low a Technology Readiness Level is, present and prospect environmental and economic impacts arising from introducing technology advancements in a production cycle can be calculated. Nevertheless, this is not necessarily the case when accounting for social impacts. As the size-dependency of this data cannot be objectively stated. Moral-wise, the utilitarian stance of prioritizing benefits to the social group over those of the individual, would call for scaling the impacts, meanwhile Rawlsianism would consider that no matter the number of affected individuals, a social impact should always be considered a poignant issue, especially if it is a negative one. In the light of this theory, scaling social assessments would not be necessary. This is the idea behind this contribution: To try to understand throughout a case study the coverage and limits of a Social Life Cycle Assessment, identifying what indicators of those proposed by in the UNEP-SETAC group guidelines are affected from a scale-up in the production, and which ones would remain unchanged. Besides, the organisational implications should also be considered as in some cases increasing the standardisation of a novel technology can cause the chronification of negative social issues, or may lead to their dissolution, in others. In the contribution, the results of the Social Life Cycle Assessment for novel technologies and advanced materials are presented and the scalability of results studied.