Exploring a Framework for Assessing Socio-Ecological Impacts of Systems – Toward an Absolute Sustainability paradigm

The introduction of socio-ecological issues is a necessity: our lifestyles are in the process of making our planet uninhabitable because of the various impacts that were inflicting on it. To reverse this trend, we need to measure our impacts. In the context of system engineering, Life Cycle Assessment is a widely used tool. However, LCA has limitations such as the lack of integration of planetary boundaries and social issues that are context dependent. Thus, methods are being developed for locating impacts: it is known that impacts can be different at different scales, local, global... These issues of scale are found in other assessment methods such as the Doughnut, which seems to be a decision support tool for sustainable systems design. Thus, we hypothesize that the Doughnut could be the base of a framework for assessing the socio-ecological impact of complex technical systems. To test this hypothesis, we use an illustrative case. We will first see what the issues are around LCA. We will then describe how the Doughnut can be a support to assess the socio-ecological impact of systems before discussing and conclude.