| 1. |
- Afrane, George, et al.
(författare)
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A product chain organisation study of certified cocoa supply
- 2013
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Ingår i: 6th International Conference on Life Cycle Management, LCM2013, 25-28 August 2013,Göteborg.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cocoa supplies may become limited in the future. Demands for sustainable cocoa sparked an exploration of the product chain organisation of conventional and certified cocoa from Ghana. The comparison shows that transparency requirements have led to a more complex product chain. Even so, certification has yielded important productivity increases resulting in environmental benefits (e.g. reduced greenhouse gas emissions) and improved livelihoods for smallholder farmers.
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| 2. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Is there a scientific justification for the current use of child labour and working hours in social LCA?
- 2014
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 4th International seminar in social LCA.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the social life cycle assessment (SLCA) literature, child labour and working hours are frequently suggested and used as indicators for assessment of social impacts. This use is mainly motivated by compliance with political documents. However, indicators should also have a scientific foundation. We therefore review the scientific literature in order to investigate whether the contemporary use of child labour and working hours is scientifically justified. We found that although working hours is used somewhat differently in different SLCA studies, most SLCA studies suggest that fewer working hours are socially beneficial. Yet the non-SLCA scientific literature rather suggests a delicate balance between working too much, and being underemployed. The risk of unemployment is also stressed, not only for society as a whole but also for individual workers. Although excessive (and hard) working may be more common in so-called developing countries, and therefore more severe, adverse social impacts from working too little with subsequent loss of income is typically also more severe in those countries. For child labour, the SLCA literature regards it as socially adverse in unison. However, the non-SLCA scientific literature gives a broader view. Although many cases of harmful child labour have been reported, it is also clear that some forms of child labour may be less harmful, perhaps even socially beneficial. Such beneficial child labour could correspond to a part-time job, working during holidays, or helping parents at their farm. In general, the non-SLCA literature thus does not provide complete scientific justification for the contemporary use of working hours and child labour in the SLCA literature.
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| 3. |
- 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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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Baumann, Henrikke, 1964, et al.
(författare)
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LCA i ett nötskal
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 6. |
- 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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| 7. |
- Baumann, Henrikke, 1964
(författare)
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Lifecycle assessments
- 2010
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Ingår i: The Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability, vol 2 The Business of Sustainability. - 9781933782133 ; , s. 309-314
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 8. |
- Baumann, Henrikke, 1964
(författare)
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The building with LCA. Lessons on method and application after 20+ years of experience
- 2012
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Ingår i: LimesNet Research Conference 2012.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Life cycle assessment is a method for comprehensive environmental assessment of product systems. The first LCAs were carried out around the late 1960s/early 1970s, but the methodology did not become documented and formalized until the 1990s.The building sector has been identified as one of society's major sources of environmental impact, and is sometimes called the 40% sector, indicating its environmental significance. It is therefore not surprising that the building sector displays a wide range of LCA applications on all scales. Examples of LCA work in the building industry, ranging from studies on building materials to studies on urban metabolism, will be presented. Although LCA is often put forward as a tool for decision support, it is in practice a great tool for learning. The exploration of LCA applications is intended to contribute to a discussion on remaining issues for research.
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| 9. |
- Baumann, Henrikke, 1964, et al.
(författare)
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The Usefulness of an Actor’s Perspective in LCA
- 2011
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Ingår i: Towards Life Cycle Sustainability Management. - Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands. - 9789400718982 ; , s. 73-83
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper is an argumentation for adding an actor’s perspective to lifecycleassessment (LCA). The need for this perspective stems from a criticismabout the usefulness of LCA interpretation methods comparing the relativecontribution of life-cycle phases of a product. Our argumentation is based on fourpreviously published studies providing practical examples of how value chainactors’ influence may be considered in an LCA and the benefit of doing so.Manufacturing sector examples show how one company's influence can beillustrated in results and how it may relate all relevant emissions to its ownprocesses. The food sector study shows how to assess several value chain actors’individual improvement potential. The final example, taken from building sector,explore how to consider the fact that actors in one part of the value chain caninfluence other actors to improve.
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| 10. |
- Baumann, Henrikke, 1964
(författare)
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Using the life cycle approach for structuring organizational studies of product chains
- 2012
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Ingår i: Greening of Industry Network 2012 conference.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Justification: A novel form of life cycle study that focuses on the organization of product chains is presented. The method has been tested in three studies: on a diaper fluff chain (Gullbring & Nilsson 2010), rare earth metal product chains (Eriksson & Olsson 2011), and on a cocoa product chain (Borg & Selmer 2012).Purpose: Organizational studies on the greening of industry sometimes focus on environmental practices in a single company, a particular sector or phenomenon. To further enrich the methodologies of this field, a novel approach where the life cycle product flow (from the LCA method) is used as a structuring principle for studies of product chain organization is proposed. While an LCA Study is highly technical in content, a product chain organization study does not require much technical knowledge. The mentioned studies were largely empirically conducted by management students. Alternately, an LCA holds much information about industry and society but engineers might not be the best suited to draw conclusions on the management and governance of product chains for industry decision makers and policy makers, which it is necessary to find ways of involving social scientists and management scholar into life cycle studies. The development of an organizational life cycle method for product chain organization studies is just one way of reaching out by attempting to make the life cycle method accessible for them.The framework: The life cycle, or rather the material flow from raw material extraction to waste management forms a backbone for the organizational study. The organizational study covers the companies, organizations, etc, that enables the material/product to “flow”—without them, no product flow! In the conducted studies, different organizational issues were studied. The method is based in actor—network—theory thinking, which allows for attention to both physical and human actors (cf. Baumann 2004, 2008).Results: The three studies cover very different topics, ranging from the relation of environmental management in the companies along a particular product chain, to issues of resource security, and the organization of sustainable sourcing.Conclusions: The three PCO studies show is that the method is viable and versatile, and that it can provide interesting findings, even when no environmental LCA calculation is performed. They also show that it is not necessary to be an engineer to be able to carry out a life cycle study.
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