Social Life Cycle Assessment of Cocoa Production: Evidence from Ivory Coast and Ghana

Cocoa is a natural resource that plays a very important role globally, being one of the most produced and traded commodities. As a labour-intensive product and considering that its cultivation involves about 50 million people globally, it seems significant to explore its social sustainability. In li...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Resources (Basel) 2024-10, Vol.13 (10), p.141
Main Authors: Vinci, Giuliana, Ruggeri, Marco, Gobbi, Laura, Savastano, Marco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Child labor practices
Children
Chocolate
Cocoa
Cocoa industry
Commodity futures
Crop diseases
Côte d'Ivoire
Employment
Exports
Ghana
International economic relations
ivory coast
Labor unions
Life cycle analysis
Life cycle assessment
Life cycles
Logistics
Migrant labor
Natural resources
Risk
Risk assessment
SLCA
Social impact
Social life & customs
social life cycle assessment
Social sustainability
Supply chains
Value chain
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Summary:Cocoa is a natural resource that plays a very important role globally, being one of the most produced and traded commodities. As a labour-intensive product and considering that its cultivation involves about 50 million people globally, it seems significant to explore its social sustainability. In light of this, this research aimed to map social risks within the cocoa supply chain from a life cycle perspective. Therefore, the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) was used, following the PSILCA database, considering the two most influential countries in its production, i.e., Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The results showed that there could be a very high risk that more than half of the cocoa globally is produced through child labour and with wages too low to guarantee workers a decent living, returning incomes of $30–38/month. Forced labour is much less frequent than child labour, while cocoa from Ghana may induce a high risk of improper work, considering the 30.2 h per week worked by farmers. This is mainly due to the low association power of 10–16%, which reveals a high risk that workers may not organise themselves into trade unions. Finally, at 23–25%, there is also a very high risk of discrimination due to the high presence of migrant labour. Therefore, the S-LCA results showed that the cocoa industry is still characterised by socially unsustainable sourcing.
ISSN:2079-9276
2079-9276
DOI:10.3390/resources13100141