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- Baumann, Henrikke, 1964, et al.
(författare)
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Does the Production of an Airbag Injure more People than the Airbag Saves in Traffic?: Opting for an Empirically Based Approach to Social Life Cycle Assessment
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Industrial Ecology. - : Wiley. - 1530-9290 .- 1088-1980. ; 17:4, s. 517-527
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) has been discussed for some years in the LCA community. We raise two points of criticism against current S-LCA approaches. First, the development of S-LCA methodology has not, to date, been based on experience with actual case studies. Second, for social impacts to be meaningfully assessed in a life cycle perspective, social indicators need to be unambiguously interpreted in all social contexts along the life cycle. We here discuss an empirically based approach to S-LCA, illustrated by a case study of an automobile airbag system. The aim of the case study is to compare the injuries and lives lost during the product life cycle of the airbag system (excluding waste handling impacts) with the injuries prevented and lives saved during its use. The indicator used for assessing social impacts in this study is disability-adjusted life years (DALY). The results from this study indicate that the purpose of an airbag system, which is to save lives and prevent injuries, is justified also in a life cycle perspective.
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| 2. |
- Baumann, Henrikke, 1964, et al.
(författare)
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Life Cycle Assessment on Life and Death: Comparing Lives Saved by an Airbag with Lives Lost during Its Production
- 2011
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Ingår i: 6th International Conference on Industrial Ecology, Berkley, California, June 7-10, 2011.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Recently, a framework for including social impacts of a products life cycle has been developed by United Nations Environmental Programme and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. That framework includes impact categories such as human rights, working conditions and governance. Here, we present a different approach that balances impacts with benefits: lives saved by the product during the life cycle minus lives lost during the life cycle as impact category. The study object, and also the functional unit of the study, is an air bag with its electronic control system. The main object of an airbag is to save lives. However, during the production of the airbag and its control systems, lives may be lost, for instance in the production of pyrotechnical content of the airbag and in the mining of metals for the electronic control unit. The mining of metals often takes place in developing countries with poor legislation for working conditions and sometimes conflict areas. The impact is characterized as the average number of lives saved per functional unit minus the casualties believed to occur during production of one functional unit. This is a convenient indicator since it easy to interpret and comprehend. It also gives a quantitative estimate of whether the airbag is reasonable from a social point of view from a life cycle perspective, or if it just exports the casualties to other parts of the world. We also discuss in the study when there is a benefit to gain from investigating social impacts along a life cycle. The study is currently ongoing, and results will be ready to for presentation by the time of the conference.
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