Social life cycle assessment of biodiesel production at three levels: a literature review and development needs

•Different levels of decision-making require different types of information.•Carrying out comprehensive social LCA is not possible yet.•The best that researchers can do is suggest conceptual parts of the method.•Search for pathways should be on relationships whose generalisation potential is high.•SLCA will help us to rank alternatives scenarios set in the same general context.

Assessment of social impacts of products and services has gained increasing interest in society. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool developed to estimate the impacts of products and services from cradle to grave. Traditionally LCA has focused on environmental impacts, but recently approaches for social life cycle assessment (SLCA) have also been developed. Most of them fairly address social performances of business, but the aim of this paper is to analyse the possibilities and development needs in the complementary approach, which is the evaluation of social impacts in LCA. We review the field in general and take a closer look at the empirical case of biodiesel production, which is a timely topic globally in view of the climate change mitigation objectives. The analysis is carried out at three levels – company, regional, and state level. Despite active development in the field of SLCA, we conclude that in many cases it is not yet possible to carry out a comprehensive SLCA. Finally, we outline lines of research that would further improve the methodological and empirical basis of SLCA at various levels of decision-making.