Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) of a conventional man's shirt of WE-Fashion. Determining the social sustainability performance of the company according to the product's life cycle

Abstract

Social sustainability in the textile and apparel industry, has called the world’s attention due to the multiple social incidents that occur in this industry, costing the life of thousands and threatening the wellbeing of stakeholders. In view of this context, brand companies have taken serious measures to enhance these conditions, such as implementing social management systems along their value chains. In the last few years they have started to measure both the environmental and social impacts generated along their products’ life cycles. One of the most complete approaches to evaluate impacts along products’ life cycles, is the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). The Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) is one of the branches of the LCSA, but it has not been widely explored and developed basically due to the complexity of social systems, the difficulty to collect reliable data and the lack of standardized procedures to perform the methodology’ phases. Consequently, few complete S-LCA studies have been published, and even less from the textile and apparel industry. Therefore, the aim of this research was to conduct a complete S-LCA to a garment product of the Dutch retailer WE Fashion (WE). The S-LCA followed the structure of the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines, where the social hotspot assessment (SHA) was performed through the Psilca database. The system’s scope was from cradle-to-gate, considering four stakeholder groups: Workers, Local Community, Value Chain Actors and Society, and five social categories: Working Conditions, Health and Safety, Cultural Heritage, Fairness and Relationships and Socioeconomic Repercussions. Results from the SHA pointed out the Bangladeshi apparel manufacture sector and the Malaysian fabric manufacture sector as the main social hotspots of the WE-shirt life cycle. However, a special concern emerged regarding the Malaysian sector due to high social risks in Child labor and forced labor. Results from the site-specific assessment indicated a negative social performance in all social categories. These results were associated to specific SDGs, to appreciate how these issues are hampering the goals’ achievement. Among the several recommendations provided to WE, the most relevant is to ensure the wellbeing of additional stakeholders such as local communities, society and suppliers. This research contributed to the continuous development of the S-LCA methodology, and further provided an insight about how companies can engage the SDGs by firstly measuring the current and potential impacts generated by the business’ daily practices.