Evaluating Sustainable Development from a Child's Perspective - A Proposal of Sustainable Child Development Index (SCDI)

In Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA), the UNEP guideline proposes the five stakeholder groups to investigate the corresponding social issues from a whole-population perspective. Despite the relevance of children in inheriting and forming the society in the context of sustainable development, children are neglected as a relevant stakeholder group. To consider children's interests and influence in SLCA from a top-down perspective, a literature review is conducted to identify relevant topics and gaps related to the assessment of child development. The results categorize the main aspects of child development into six themes: health, education, safety, material condition, relationship, participation, and a newly proposed theme environmental aspect. Furthermore, to address the existing gaps, the Sustainable Child Development Index (SCDI) is proposed to consider relevant aspects of children development on an outcome and a context level, with regard to newly-proposed environmental aspects.