Assessing social risks in Greek and Dutch economies: A product social impact life cycle assessment approach

Abstract Purpose Input–output tables describe monetary relationships between producers and consumers within an economy and have been used to assess the effects on job creation and gross domestic product (GDP). The objective of this study was to apply the social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) to assess direct social risks in national economies and explore whether S-LCA can replace or support beyond-GDP metrics. Methods S-LCA was applied in three ways. First, a hotspot assessment was conducted using the Product Social Impact Life Cycle Assessment (PSILCA) database to assess the direct social risks of monetary outputs of the Dutch and Greek economies in 2018. Classification 1 regarded the comparison of the Dutch and Greek economies based on direct social risks classified as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Classification 2 grouped the calculated social risks into sub-sub-topics of the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Standards (CSRS) directive. In each classification, the calculated risks were normalized by the total monetary output of the national economy. Results and discussion This study showed that the Dutch economy results in lower normalized risk values for all S-LCA stakeholders and impact subcategories, except for “Respect of indigenous rights” and “Health and safety (Workers).” The main contributing parameters were sectorial monetary output and the risk levels of the indicators. Classification 1 showed that using input–output tables and PSILCA to simplify the calculation of SDGs was partially successful, because the SDGs also consider environmental aspects and PSILCA is limited to social aspects. Classification 2 showed that the Greek economy resulted in higher normalized risk values than the Dutch economy for almost all sub-sub-topics of the CSRS. Conclusions The results indicate that input–output tables can be extended to incorporate social dimensions with S-LCA and PSILCA. However, the nature of the SDGs means that S-LCA is not capable of simplifying the evaluation of countries’ societal progress, but S-LCA combined with PSILCA can assist national governments in taking targeted actions to reach SDG targets and enforce European CSRS directive compliance in the most impactful economic sectors for social performance monitoring and reporting.