An appraisal of social aspects in project and technology life cycle management in the process industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce methods that have been developed to consider social sustainability aspects in the initial phases of projects in industry, i.e. in the design stage of technological systems, whereby a proactive approach in industry can be ensured. The inclusion of social aspects in both the sustainability debate and practice has been marginal compared with the focus on the other two dimensions of sustainable development, i.e. economic and environmental performances, especially from a business perspective. The tools that have focused on social business sustainability aspects have mainly addressed business sustainable development reporting, operational conditions, and product social life cycle assessments.Design/methodology/approach – The first method builds on a framework of social sustainability criteria that has been introduced for the South African process industry. A Social Impact Indicator (SII) calculation procedure has been developed based on a previously introduced...

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