Authors
Lehmann, Jérémie; Fofack-Garcia, Rhoda; Perez-Lopez, Paula
Abstract
In the energy transition context, private decision-makers and policymakers must choose between different energy scenarios for process improvement and territorial planning. Hence, implications of the development of these technologies need to be objectively analysed to ensure their alignment with energy transition objectives. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is nowadays one of the most appropriate methods to assess impacts related to products and services. While LCA application for environmental assessment is already consolidated, social aspects of sustainability are not systematically evaluated yet. For application to social impacts, the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines propose a framework to conduct a Social-LCA (S-LCA). However, this framework is still under development and broadly formulated. Most frequently, social issues included in sustainability analyses on electricity generation plants concern number of employment or health and safety issues. Moreover, few studies in the literature present a rigorous approach to account for social impacts affecting different stakeholder categories, especially at a territorial level. For industries and public authorities, offshore wind farm (OWF) development, requires accounting many criteria related to territorial planning and social acceptance. This study presents a S-LCA method based on industrial perception for defining the priority social aspects and related stakeholders in the context of OWF. It is conducted in the framework of LIF-OWI project, which relies on close collaboration with key industrial partners. Similarly to LCA, S-LCA must include all aspects of a systems life cycle, meaning that in the OWF context it should consider the social issues not only at offshore wind farm scale, but also at power generation sectorial scale. The identified ranking for of social issues will be used to identify where the S-LCA study will focus on in the next steps.