Social issues in classical and social LCA: from identification of overlaps to an integrated framework

In order to come to an overall Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), it has been stated many times that classical (environmental) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) should be extended with economic and social impact assessment like Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA). This methodological framework reflects the concept of sustainable development as defined in the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (UN, 2002). Indeed, according to this definition the sustainability principle should integrate the three pillars of economy, environment and society, also referred as 3P approach: people, planet and prosperity. LCA has first emerged as a tool for environmental management, based on the compilation of physical exchanges in between the natural environment and the human/industrial environment (energy and materials) and the assessment of the environmental impacts directly attributable to a system throughout its life cycle.