Social Life Cycle Assessment of Marine Biofuels in Namibia

Social Life Cycle Assessment of Marine Biofuels in Namibia: Insights from a Charcoal Value Chain

van Rechteren Limpurg, Elisabeth (TU Delft Applied Sciences)

Delft University of Technology

Delft University of Technology

Life Science and Technology (LST)

Clean shipping project

2023-06-12

The use of encroacher bush in Namibia for the production of sustainable maritime biofuel can play a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions within the maritime sector. However, it is crucial to ensure that biofuel is produced sustainably, to mitigate any potential negative social, economic and environmental impacts. This thesis focuses on identifying the potential social hotspots for a conceptual biofuel value chain (biohub), by conducting a social life cycle assessment (SLCA) on the existing value chain producing charcoal from encroacher bush. By assessing the social impacts associated with the charcoal value chain, potential challenges and opportunities can be identified and support decision-making processes for the conceptual biohub. The SLCA was performed by combining participatory stakeholder approaches with the Subcategory Assessment Method (SAM) to evaluate and score the social impacts. A literature screening was used for the initial selection of the context-specific stakeholder categories, social impact subcategories and indicators suggested by the SLCA guidelines. The required data was collected during 36 semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders in Namibia. The most important subcategories for the charcoal value chain were identified by having the stakeholders rank them on importance during a workshop. The results of the current charcoal value chain show that there are significant negative social impacts associated with encroacher bush harvesting, including the issues related to workers’ safe and healthy working conditions, fair remuneration and environmental implications. The local community has issues with limited access to encroacher bush value chains and high unemployment rates. The biohub can address these issues and improve social impacts by implementing better monitoring and control of harvesting practices, creating local employment opportunities, improving working conditions and increasing local community involvement. Keywords: Social life cycle assessment, Social impacts, Encroacher bush, Charcoal, Marine biofuel

Social life cycle assessment
Social impacts
Encroacher bush
Charcoal
Marine biofuel

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:46f286c7-535b-437d-a0cb-e06f6d50e58a

Student theses

master thesis

© 2023 Elisabeth van Rechteren Limpurg