Measuring the immeasurable: The contribution of social sciences to the assessment of social impacts in a life cycle perspective

Paper in proceeding, 2020

The UNEP/SETAC guidelines encourage researches in order to overcome some methodological issues related to Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA). Possible problems regard the operationalization and measurement of social indicators usually based on the corporate social responsibility structure and on political standards and conventions. To face these issues, possible contributes may come from the adoption of a theoretical and methodological pluralism approach based on social sciences. The aim of this study is to investigate on how social sciences may orient SLCA practitioners towards the development of new indicators related to human well-being. Focusing on social sciences, a literature review will be performed in order to see how human well-being is defined according to the several disciplines and what may be its possible indicators. Expected results regard a deeper knowledge of social realities and an increased awareness of how social sciences could contribute to develop the SLCA.