Overview
ISO 14075:2024 - "Environmental management - Principles and framework for social life cycle assessment" establishes a standardized framework for conducting social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) of products. The standard defines principles, requirements and guidance for goal and scope definition, social life cycle inventory (S-LCI), social life cycle impact assessment (S-LCIA), interpretation and reporting. ISO 14075:2024 explicitly supports alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by helping identify enabling versus inhibiting social aspects across a product life cycle.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Principles of S-LCA: life cycle perspective, social focus, relative approach with a functional unit, iterative process, transparency, comprehensiveness, scientific approach and recognition of international conventions.
- Phases of an S-LCA study:
- Goal and scope definition (including interested party categorization and functional unit),
- Social life cycle inventory analysis (S-LCI),
- Social life cycle impact assessment (S-LCIA),
- Interpretation and reporting.
- Methodological framework elements: system boundaries, reference flows and activity variables, data quality requirements, allocation rules, and structure of the product system.
- Data collection approaches: quantitative, qualitative and semi‑quantitative methods for S-LCI with guidance on collecting social data across supply chains.
- Reference-scale assessment: use of reference scales to assess magnitude and significance of social impacts.
- Comparability and claims: requirements for comparisons between systems and for social comparative assertions, including guidance on critical review and transparency.
- Reporting and limitations: reporting requirements for internal and third‑party reports, and explicit guidance on study limitations and responsible use of results.
Practical applications and users
ISO 14075:2024 is intended for practitioners across industry, government, academia and NGOs who need credible social impact assessments of products. Typical applications include:
- Corporate sustainability and supply‑chain due diligence (assessing worker conditions, community impacts, access to services).
- Product design and eco‑innovation (integrating social performance into product development).
- Public procurement and sustainable purchasing (evaluating social outcomes alongside environmental LCA).
- Research and policy analysis (benchmarking social impacts and tracking progress toward SDGs).
- Consulting and third‑party assurance (structured S-LCA studies for stakeholders).
Users: sustainability managers, LCA practitioners, product designers, procurement officers, NGOs, academic researchers and regulatory bodies.
Related standards
- ISO 14040 - Environmental management - Life cycle assessment - Principles and framework
- ISO 14044:2006 - Environmental management - Life cycle assessment - Requirements and guidelines
- ISO 14050 - Environmental management - Vocabulary
Keywords: ISO 14075:2024, social life cycle assessment, S-LCA, S-LCI, S-LCIA, UN SDG, life cycle inventory, impact assessment, product social impacts, functional unit, supply chain social assessment.
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