On June 16th, the international workshop “Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) within the Safe and Sustainable by Design Framework” took place. This technical and participatory session was organized by Kveloce in collaboration with the IRISS network and brought together more than 65 participants from around 40 European organizations. Held entirely online, the event offered a space for dialogue to advance one of the most complex and still underdeveloped aspects of sustainability: its social dimension.
The Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework, promoted by the European Commission, proposes integrating sustainability and safety criteria from the earliest stages of material, product, and process development. While environmental and toxicological aspects have made significant progress in recent years, the social dimension remains a methodological challenge. This workshop was conceived as a starting point to align approaches, share resources, and move towards a more robust and harmonized social assessment.
During the session, representatives from research centers, universities, consultancies, and European projects shared tools, methodologies, and real-world case studies applied to sectors such as recycling, energy, agriculture, and water management. Specific challenges addressed included the justification of social impact pathways, the use of reference scales for result comparison, and the current limitations of databases used in S-LCA, such as PSILCA or SHDB.
One of the key moments of the workshop was the presentation of practical experiences by EU-funded projects. These contributions showcased how social life cycle assessment is currently being applied in very diverse contexts and helped identify common barriers and emerging methodological approaches. Experiences were shared from the field of energy storage, with comparative analysis of safe and sustainable battery technologies; circular management of agricultural and plastic waste; traceability of responsible value chains; and integrated sustainability assessment in sectors such as water, automotive, and lubricant manufacturing. Projects such as SuESS, Phase 5, SitoLub, Orienting, Diagonal, ZEvRA, WATER-MINING, Circle Flagship, BatMachine, as well as Agro2Circular and ViSS, presented by Kveloce, offered concrete examples of how to adapt the social approach within the SSbD framework to the characteristics and needs of each sector.
Interventions by entities such as the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), IVL, Tekniker, GreenDelta, and VTT provided complementary perspectives on the various elements necessary to advance the integration of S-LCA into the SSbD framework. The JRC introduced the conceptual framework of S-LCA within the European safe and sustainable design strategy; IVL presented the role of the IRISS network as a support structure for its implementation; GreenDelta and VTT discussed the use of databases like PSILCA and other tools applied in real studies; while Tekniker offered an up-to-date overview of the level of S-LCA implementation in various European contexts.
Far from being an isolated initiative, this workshop aims to become the first step in an ongoing collaboration among key actors in the SSbD ecosystem. In fact, one of the most prominent conclusions was the proposal to create a stable working group to promote methodological convergence, identify knowledge gaps, and facilitate technical exchange between projects and institutions.
At Kveloce, we celebrate the warm reception and commitment shown by all participants. We firmly believe that progress towards sustainability that also includes the social dimension depends on creating spaces like this one: open, technical, constructive, and oriented toward shared results.
Very soon, with prior consent from participating entities, we will share the workshop presentations and materials on open-access platforms such as Zenodo, with the goal of continuing to foster shared knowledge.
