An Evaluation of the Applicability of Social Life Cycle Assessment in the Aerospace Industry

Sammanfattning

This master’s thesis evaluates the applicability and effectiveness of Social Life Assessment(S-LCA) as a method for assessing social sustainability within the aerospaceindustry. Given the increasing emphasis in recent years on corporate sustainability,the study investigates whether S-LCA can provide meaningful insights into the complexsocial impacts associated with aerospace products and their global value chains.The research combines a methodological review of S-LCA and its applicability witha case study on a selected aerospace product. The study assesses how S-LCA canbe implemented across different life cycle stages, from raw material extraction tousage, a so-called “cradle-to-gate” approach, and identifies social hotspots on organizationalas well as on industry level. The findings indicate that S-LCA is, intheory, a valuable tool for identifying social hotspots and, by extension, feasibleto use for addressing social sustainability challenges. However, the methodologypresents limitations, including data availability and quality challenges, the inherentsubjectivity of the assessment, and sensitivity to selected system boundaries. Thecase study demonstrates that results vary to a great degree depending on madeassumptions and what data sources are used, which highlights the need for carefulmethodological choices. To summarize, the thesis concludes that while S-LCA is apromising approach, its use and effectiveness in the aerospace industry is dependenton methodological development and increased data transparency