A comparison of cut roses from Ecuador and the Netherlands

Purpose  

There is a need to assess social impacts of products along the full life cycle, not only to be able to address the “social dimension” in sustainability, but also for potentially improving the circumstances of affected stakeholders. This paper presents a case study for a social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) based on the recently published “Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products” developed by the United Nations Environment Programme/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) working group. General aim is to “try out” the proposed method. The case study itself compares the impacts of rose production in Ecuador with the Netherlands. Furthermore, the objective is to identify differences and similarities in environmental and social life cycle modelling and both social and environmental hot spots in each of the life cycles.