Complementing social life cycle assessment to reach sustainable development goals - A case study from the malaysian oil palm industry

Abstract

The Malaysian oil palm industry is one of the important contributors to the national economy, which improves the socio-economic of people, source of employment and eradicating poverty, but the industry is always scrutinised on its sustainability performance related to the human well-being and social issues. One of the approaches to address the associated social impacts in the oil palm industry is through social life cycle assessment (S-LCA). S-LCA was developed by the United Nations Environmental Programme and Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) to assess positive and negative social impact along the supply chain. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also has set the social criteria to move society towards the improvement of the well-being of people and surroundings. This study aims to assess the social impacts of the workers in the Malaysian oil palm industry using S-LCA and to indicate their connection with relevant SDGs. The system boundary of this study was from nursery, plantation up to palm oil mill where the worker's stakeholder categories were chosen. The S-LCA methodology was adopted from the UNEP/SETAC guidelines for the subcategory lists and the methodological sheet for indicators development. Out of eight worker subcategories, only six subcategories were assessed. The method assessment of this study using performance reference point using five classifications of level which are 1 - Excellent, 2 - Above average, 3 - Average, 4 - Below average and 5- Extremely poor) to gauge the organisation performance. The subcategory results ranged between 1 – 3 and indicated that some improvements are required for certain subcategories. Linking with SLCA and SDG showed that 6 out of 17 SDGs are relevant. LCA can be a tool to support oil palm businesses to achieve SDGs, but further explanation is needed to link LCA with SDGs since SDGs are conceptualised at the country or regional level whereas LCA is mainly used to gauge the impacts of products or services at the micro or business level.