LH
L. Herpain
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Climate Justice in Social Life Cycle Assessment
An Approach for Just Energy Transitions
Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) is a prevalent tool in industrial ecology (IE) for evaluating social impacts across products and systems’ life cycles. Policymakers and industrial actors increasingly use it to guide their decisions in the energy transition. Although the energy transition is widely recognised as generating new and reinforcing existing climate injustices, the intersection of climate justice and S-LCA remains largely unexplored in the literature. In this light, the thesis deals with the following research question: How can Social Life Cycle Assessment be critically evaluated and advanced to better account for climate justice in the energy transition? This research uses an exploratory and prescriptive design with participatory data collection methods (e.g., elicitation interviews) and content analysis. It first identifies and explains the main limitations of current S-LCA practice in addressing climate justice. Specifically, it demonstrates various methodological constraints—for most, already reflected in the literature—as well as epistemic constraints that have thus far remained unexplored within the identified literature. Then, it develops a climate justice-based approach to operationalise climate justice in S-LCA practice through four pillars: decoloniality, inclusivity, reflexivity, and relationality. By rendering S-LCA more responsive to climate justice, this research supports S-LCA practitioners to undertake more critical and reflexive S-LCA assessments of energy systems, thereby preventing S-LCA practice from unintentionally perpetuating injustices in relation to the energy transition. Future work should further advance the climate justice-based approach through empirical applications and spur collaboration among S-LCA experts, climate justice advocates, and affected communities across energy supply chains.
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Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) is a prevalent tool in industrial ecology (IE) for evaluating social impacts across products and systems’ life cycles. Policymakers and industrial actors increasingly use it to guide their decisions in the energy transition. Although the energy transition is widely recognised as generating new and reinforcing existing climate injustices, the intersection of climate justice and S-LCA remains largely unexplored in the literature. In this light, the thesis deals with the following research question: How can Social Life Cycle Assessment be critically evaluated and advanced to better account for climate justice in the energy transition? This research uses an exploratory and prescriptive design with participatory data collection methods (e.g., elicitation interviews) and content analysis. It first identifies and explains the main limitations of current S-LCA practice in addressing climate justice. Specifically, it demonstrates various methodological constraints—for most, already reflected in the literature—as well as epistemic constraints that have thus far remained unexplored within the identified literature. Then, it develops a climate justice-based approach to operationalise climate justice in S-LCA practice through four pillars: decoloniality, inclusivity, reflexivity, and relationality. By rendering S-LCA more responsive to climate justice, this research supports S-LCA practitioners to undertake more critical and reflexive S-LCA assessments of energy systems, thereby preventing S-LCA practice from unintentionally perpetuating injustices in relation to the energy transition. Future work should further advance the climate justice-based approach through empirical applications and spur collaboration among S-LCA experts, climate justice advocates, and affected communities across energy supply chains.