Introduction.
The United Nations (UN) developed the action plan ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ at the General Assembly on September 25, 2015, which encompasses 17 integrated goals that combine three dimensions: economic, social, and environmental [1]. According to the goals of the 2030 Agenda, regulating the social and socioeconomic impacts of consumer goods is relevant to achieve a fair society. Product development, as a process of creating new goods or services or improving existing ones, involves the management of the entire life cycle, including decision making related to material extraction, production, logistics, use, and end of life. The product life cycle can be a significant source of environmental, social, and economic impact. In this context, the Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) has arisen as a method that can be used to assess the social and sociological aspects of products, their actual and potential positive as well as negative impacts along the life cycle. This looks at the extraction and processing of raw materials, manufacturing, distribution, use, reuse, maintenance, recycling and final disposal and it is one of the three pillars of a global Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment as it was stated in our previous article published in this blog of MacGhyver Project [2].
In the context of MacGhyver Project, it can be said that worldwide, hydrogen demand has increased substantially due to the development of national hydrogen strategies, but it poses several economic and social challenges as the production pathway needs be green, economically viable, and socially acceptable. The production of green hydrogen has both environmental and social impacts, and both need to be considered to guide decision making which are the objectives of the work package 6 of this EU Project. Following the guidelines published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) [1], the S-LCA has been designed to achieve different objectives and to preliminary assess the social aspects of the MacGhyver project and their potential impacts, both positive and negative, along its life cycle. Figure 1 shows a diagram that collects the main stakeholders of the society, starting with the product (in this case, the green hydrogen production) and layering it with different social communities from near to far. The stakeholders and the different subcategories have been carefully chosen with this scheme in mind.
The Survey for the S-LCA for MacGhyver Project?
As a part of the activities for SLCA, a survey has been carried out following the steps suggested in the guidelines presented by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) working group [3]. In the following QR code (Figure 2), the readers are kindly invited to complete the survey which is performed in 6 languages:
Figure 2. QR code of the survey. It could be checked in the next link: https://forms.gle/wpGeHepcyTGDnDh49.
This survey has 17 questions and has been carried out taking into account the next steps, suggested by the guidelines from UNEP:
The first step of the S-LCA aims to describe the study.
S-LCA is being carried out under the framework of MacGhyver project and is part of the activities of the work package six devoted to the Sustainability analysis that will be carried out by means of a LCA, which includes E-LCA, LCC, and S-LCA.
Why is a S-LCA being conducted? Because of the importance of social pilar in the development of hydrogen technologies.
What is the intended use? It is intended to find out people’s awareness of hydrogen technologies and developments.
Who will use the results? MacGhyver Project and European Investigation Council.
What do we want to assess? Society’s interest in hydrogen technologies and its development.
Objective: The aim of the study is to assess the knowledge/opinion of people about hydrogen economy.
Goals:
- To specify the object and objectives of the study: Assess the socio-economic impact of green MacGhyver electrolyser.
- To determine the activity variable to be used and the unit processes to be included: Survey.
- To plan data collection and specify which data will be collected and on which impact categories and subcategories: it is defined in Table 1.
- To identify the stakeholders involved with each of the processes and the type of critical review required. Stakeholders: Global Society and Local communities, Workers, Consumers, Value chain actors (see Table 1).
Table 1. Stakeholder categories and its subcategories of the S-LCA.
Stakeholder categories |
Subcategories (Questions of the survey related the subcategories) |
|
Workers |
|
|
Consumers |
|
|
Local Community |
|
|
Society |
|
|
Value Chain actors |
|
2nd Scope of the study
The next step in the S-LCA goal is to decide whether to expand the system scope.
In expanding the system scope, the following steps are recommended:
- Define the ideal system: hydrogen as a green energy source.
- Define the actual system to be modeled; hydrogen production by MacGhyver electroliser.
- The product system to be studied; Development of hydrogen technologies.
- The functions of the product system or, in the case of comparative studies, the systems; Bring the green hydrogen technologies available.
- The functional unit (with special emphasis on product utility), defined in time and space; kg of hydrogen
- The system boundary (ideal system and actual system); Society
- The activity variable to be used (to inform on the relative importance of each unit process);
- The data type to be collected (generic, specific); Generic
- The stakeholder categories to include; Table 1
- The subcategories to include; Table 1
- The types of impacts to be considered; under study
- The inventory indicator and data related to those impacts; under study
- The methods for impact assessment; under study
- The allocation procedures; under study
- The interpretation planned; Statistics
- The assumptions; under study
- The value choices and optional elements; under study
- The limitations; under study
- The type of critical review, if any; under study
- The type and format of the report required for the study. Statistical report
3rd Functional Unit
In order to specify the functional unit, practitioners need to clearly define the function of the product. For example, which function will be filled by the use of the product is a question that needs to be answered. In order to help define a valuable functional unit, five steps are proposed:
Step 1: Describe the product by its properties including the product’s social utility.
Green hydrogen technologies as an energy source.
Step 2: Determine the relevant market segment.
Renewable energy sector.
Step 3: Determine the relevant product alternatives.
Other ways of producing energy from hydrogen, but generally less environmentally friendly. Conventional energy sources.
Step 4: Define and quantify the functional unit, in terms of the obligatory product properties required by the relevant market segment.
Kg of hydrogen produced.
The survey consists of 17 questions divided into three categories. In the 1st category there are 7 questions related to the personal data of the participants, 2nd category has 6 questions related to knowledge about hydrogen and in the last category there are 4 technical questions. These questions could be divided in three different blocks which are shown in Table 2. In addition, in this table 2 the five different stakeholder categories according to UNEP are also shown. Those categories are deemed to be the main group categories potentially influenced by the life cycle of a product in terms of socio-economic impacts [4]. In the present work these categories are considered.
Table 2. Blocks in which are divided the 17 questions of the survey and the stakeholders according to the UNEP guidelines.
|
Who |
General Opinion |
Technical Vision |
|
(Q1-Q7) |
(Q8-Q13) |
(Q14-Q17) |
|
Society |
Consumers Local community |
Value chain actors Workers |
First results regarding the block 1 of the Survey for the S-LCA for MacGhyver Project
At the moment, more than 600 respondents have filled the survey. Figures 3 to 7 show a radiography of the Society that has filled the survey at this moment.
Figure 3. Countries that have participated in the survey
Figure 4. participation by gender
Figure 5. Employment of the participants
It can be observed that most of the participants are from Spain. However, it can be highlighted the presence of Egypt and Germany with 7 %. Europe is the continent with more responses, more than 66 %. African countries represent the 11.5 % whereas countries from Asia, North and Central America and South America are around 7 ± 1 % each one. A great effort is carrying out in order to decrease the percentage of Spain and also to increase the participants of non European countries to get a more representative of the society. On the other hand, from the gender point of view, it can be said that the participation of men and women is similar. Moreover, regarding the employment of the respondents it can be said that most of them are researchers and students which could explain why most of the people who made the survey are in between 19 and 30 years old. As it is shown in Figure 6 where the distribution of the age of the respondents is shown.
Figure 6. Distribution of the age of the participants
Finally, it can be observed that only 2 % of the people who filled the survey has not studies whereas the persons who have studies, these are mainly bachelor degree. Also, it can be pointed out that the third part of the respondents have a PhD degree.
Figure 7. Studies that the respondents of the survey have
Bibliography
[1] United Nations. Transforming Our Word: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2015), p. 41
A/RES/70/1
- Thonemann, A. Schulte, D. Maga. How to Conduct Prospective Life Cycle Assessment for Emerging Technologies? A Systematic Review and Methodological Guidance. Sustainability, 12, 1192. (2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/su12031192
[2] M.S. Akhtar, H. Khan, J.J. Liu, J. Na. Green hydrogen and sustainable development – A social LCA perspective highlighting social hotspots and geopolitical implications of the future hydrogen economy. Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 395, 2023, 136438. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136438
[3] UNEP/SETAC, 2020. Guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products. Management 15, 104.
[4] Michele Germani, Fabio Gregori, Andrea Luzi, Marco Mengarelli. Assessing Social Sustainability of Products: An Improved S-LCA Method. 12th IFIP International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Oct 2015, Doha, Qatar. pp.529-540, ff10.1007/978-3-319-33111-9_48ff. ffhal01377479f