Life cycle sustainability management in policy frameworks – responsible sourcing

The concept of responsible sourcing (RS) refers to companies’ accountability for impacts occurring in their upstream supply chain and in the provision of materials sourced in a socially and environmentally responsible way. Due to rising concerns about the supply security of raw materials and the lack of responsible sourcing practices, both public and private actors increasingly implement due diligence procedures and policies. The Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) includes three methodologies at different stages of development, which allow assessing environmental, economic and social implications of the whole supply chain of products: namely Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). This chapter aims at exploring the links between RS and LCSA and the authors argue that LCSA has the potential to provide a first macro-scale screening of important risks while further and more detailed analysis and prioritisation needs to be conducted via corporate due diligence procedures.

MANCINI Lucia;  ENDL Andreas;  GRAF Alexander; 

2024-05-03

Edward Elgar Publishing

JRC133279

978-1-80-037865-0 (online),    978-1-80-037864-3 (print),   

https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781800378650/book-part-9781800378650-34.xml,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC133279,   

10.4337/9781800378650.00034 (online),