Session: DFMLC-01-01-Life Cycle Decision Making

Paper Number: 89196

89196 - A Quantitative Approach and an Open-Source Tool for Social Impacts Assessment 

Social impact analysis urgently needs attention in various sectors due to the critical roles in enhancing sustainability benefits. Properly assessing social impacts requires a consistent set of guidelines and requirements to reduce the practitioners’ bias. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely recognized method that can be utilized to quantitatively assess three dimensions of sustainable development in an integrated manner. This study proposes an open-source tool for social impact analysis, that particularly evaluates work environment health impacts, following the LCA-defined principles, framework, requirements, and guidelines for sustainability assessment. The proposed tool in this study can quantify the social impacts and determine the categories that are being affected either negatively or positively. In addition, this study provides an overview of the existing social impact assessment approaches, identifies the critical challenges of the current techniques, and highlights opportunities for continued research to achieve more effective solutions. As of yet, a reliable and open-source tool has not been achieved to help decision-makers in both academia and industry. Thus, we developed a web-based tool for assessing social impacts in eight domains by allowing the use of multiple metrics and comparing two processes.

Keywords: Sustainability, Life Cycle Assessment, Social Impacts Assessment, Design, Manufacturing, Open-source Tool.

Presenting Author: Amin Mirkouei University of Idaho-Idaho Falls

Presenting Author Biography: Assistant Professor at University of Idaho

Authors:

Justin Walters University of Idaho
Amin Mirkouei University of Idaho-Idaho Falls
Georgios Michail Makrakis University of Idaho