Modeling Social Life Cycle Assessment framework for the Italian wine sector

• Published in: Journal of cleaner production 2017-01, Vol.140, p.1027-1036
• Main Authors: Arcese, Gabriella, Lucchetti, Maria Claudia, Massa, Ilaria
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0959-6526; 1879-1786
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.06.137

Further consolidation of Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) are necessary. In recent years the publication of case studies on SLCA increased in order to avoid the risk of developing an unfeasible methodology. The lack of a standard entailed the development of several approaches in applying SLCA. The object of the present research is to set a SLCA analysis that faithfully reproduces the Guidelines settings, integrating them with the improvements and additions proposed by scholars in previous works. The application sector chosen is the Italian wine sector mainly characterized by SMEs and family-owned businesses. It was modelled a conceptual framework defining the stakeholders' categories, the related impact categories and indicators. It emerged the necessity to further develop impact subcategories to assess the contribution of the production to the local area reputation and the socio-economic impact on consumers in terms of product quality. The present study wants to supply a theoretical basis for practical applications in wine sector in Italy that could be generalized as a starting point for SLCA application in other agri-food sector. •It is provided an overview about SLCA case studies.•There are provided social indicators to assess the Italian wine sector.•Improvements to apply SLCA methodology to agri-food sector are proposed.