Social sustainability assessments of industrial level solar energy: A systematic review

Abstract

Copyright © 2023 The Authors. This study discusses the application of Social Life Cycle Assessment on existing Solar Thermal Energy and similar energy systems used in industrial supply chains. Practitioners assessing STE supply chains using the current assessment framework appraised social issues such as fair payment and employee health and safety by collecting quantitative data on employee salary and social risk. Qualitative assessment methods were also deployed through community questionnaires to measure social acceptance and audits to evaluate health and safety policy compliance. The resulting data was processed using Type 1 protocol, a model which measures social performance to assess the magnitude of a company's social impact on its stakeholders. This parameter was found to take regional and universal social standards as neutral criteria to grade the level of policy compliance, regarding fairness of employee pay and client relationships. Qualitative feedback from social audits and interview dialogue was also compared to these standards, to determine the level of a company's compliance with social policy. Our literature review revealed that current practitioners provided limited elaborative commentary on an organisation's social performance within a given case study, limiting managerial insight into observed gaps in social performance. This was found to be rooted in the lack of comprehensive and empirically driven methodology adopted by most practitioners. Our research aims to develop a framework that will provide more critical insight for managerial decision-making in order to improve the social sustainability of newly developed STE and related renewable energy systems.