Social hållbarhet är en lika självklar del av hållbar utveckling som den ekologiska och ekonomiska hållbarheten. De flesta företag arbetar aktivt med social hållbarhet i sina or-ganisationer via bland annat personalvård och erbjudanden om kultur- och friskvårdsak-tiviteter. Idag är det även många företag som arbetar med externa aktiviteter avseende att stärka och bevara social hållbarhet i samhället där man verkar. Men vad innebär detta i praktiken, och vad mer specifikt handlar ett aktivt externt arbete med social hållbarhet om för energisektorns aktörer.
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Uganda is endowed with abundant renewable energy potential from sources such as biomass, water, wind and the sun. However, this potential has not been fully utilized resulting in a situation where 15 percent of the population has access to electricity, while the majority (over 90%) depend on unsustainably used biomass and use rudimentary technologies to meet their energy needs. It is clear, that the provision of sustainable energy solutions in Uganda is crucial for alleviating poverty, strengthening the country’s economy and protecting the environment. Indeed, the Government of Uganda is committed to securing a stable energy supply for long-term social and economic development of the country. This is emphasised in the Constitution of Uganda (1995) and the Energy Policy (2002), whose goal is “To meet the energy needs of Uganda’s population for social and economic development in an environmentally sustainable manner.” Therefore, the purpose of this report is to highlight to all Ugandans, that a renewable energy future is not only possible, but perhaps the most appropriate path to take towards the transformation of Uganda’s energy sector. The report also shows that the transition to 100% renewable is cost effective, affordable and sustainable. It is also important to note that, though this transition towards renewable energy may come with some challenges, it is my hope that this report offers inspiration to government, businesses, and other stakeholders to look towards overcoming these challenges and move boldly towards a renewable energy future.
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the establishment of a robust framework for the assessment of Sus- tainable Development Goals (SDGs) in businesses, using the construction industry as an example and with the primary focus on combating climate change (SDG 13). We provide a critical analysis of a selection of relatively widely used SDG impact assessment tools, combined with a case study from the construction industry to explore how a meaningful SDG assessment can be framed with linkages between SDG 13 and other related SDGs. Our analysis points towards the importance of framing SDG assessments in a way that discourages “Green- washing”. Any SDG assessment that relates to climate targets in line with the Paris Agreement should identify the processes and activities that can be expected to be particularly challenging in terms of their abatement. In our road construction work case, we identify four such hard-to-abate activities: 1) introducing biomass for renewable transportation fuels for use in construction equipment and heavy transport; 2) electrification of transport and industrial processes; 3) substitution as part of transitioning from fossil fuel use; and 4) applying carbon capture and storage technologies in the production of basic materials, such as cement and steel. The approach applied will avoid that businesses only focus on SDGs in situations where they are already performing well or can apply low-cost measures or that they only relate to the part of the supply chain that pertains to their own business (Scope 1 emissions). For an SDG assessment to provide basis for informed decisions regarding real change to- wards more sustainable and equitable corporate practices it should: (i) identify and include concrete measures to align with the terms of the Paris Agreement; (ii) include relevant value chains; and (iii) consider both the short- term and long-term effects of strategic choices.
This paper seeks ways to address positive social impacts in social life cycle assessment (SLCA) and attempts to answer two questions: How can the SLCA methodology be improved in order to systematically identify all potential positive impacts in the supply chain? How can positive impacts be taken into consideration along with negative impacts in SLCA? In order to exemplify and provide more concrete methodological improvements, the case of vehicle fuels is used to investigate the possibilities to address positive impacts in SLCA.By scrutinising the social impacts addressed in the SLCA UNEP/SETAC By scrutinising the social impacts addressed in the SLCA UNEP/SETAC Guidelines today and reviewing approaches for positive impacts in other research fields, a developed approach to capture and aggregate positive social impacts in SLCA is proposed. To exemplify the application, the case of vehicle fuels is used to investigate the possibilities of addressing positive impacts in SLCA. This includes a literature review on potential positive social impacts linked to vehicle fuels. The subcategories in the SLCA Guidelines are proposed to be divided into positive and negative impacts and complemented with some additional positive impacts. Related indicators are proposed. A draft approach for assessing positive impacts is developed where the proposed indicators are categorised in four different levels, from low to very high potential positive impact. The possibility to aggregate positive social impacts is discussed. Besides multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), few useful ideas for aggregating positive impacts in SLCA were found in the literature that mostly focused on surveys and monetarisation. Positive social impacts linked to vehicle fuels (fossil fuels and biofuels) are identified, and the proposed approach is schematically applied to vehicle fuels.
This paper seeks ways to address positive social impacts in social life cycle assessment (SLCA) and attempts to answer two questions: How can the SLCA methodology be improved in order to systematically identify all potential positive impacts in the supply chain? How can positive impacts be taken into consideration along with negative impacts in SLCA? In order for SLCA to be an attractive tool, it needs to provide users with the possibility to include positive impacts, not as variables stipulating lack of negative impacts but rather as fulfilment of positive potentials. By scrutinising the social impacts addressed in the SLCA UNEP/SETAC Guidelines today and reviewing approaches for positive impacts in other research fields, a developed approach to capture and aggregate positive social impacts in SLCA is proposed. To exemplify the application, the case of vehicle fuels is used to investigate the possibilities of addressing positive impacts in SLCA. This includes a literature review on potential positive social impacts linked to vehicle fuels.
Syftet med denna studie är att studera vilka faktorer som påverkar efterfrågan på fasta biobränslen från Sverige med fokus på pellets samt i vilken utsträckning. Målet är att identifiera och beskriva de omvärldsfaktorer som i störst utsträckning påverkar efterfrågan på fasta svenska pellets och hur dessa faktorer samspelar med varandra. Analysen grundas på en aktörsbaserad sensitivitetsmodell där marknaden beskrivs och studeras tillsammans med en extern expertgrupp. Enligt denna studie verkar efterfrågan på pellets både från storskaliga och småskaliga kunder påverkas av flera av de andra studerade faktorerna. De fem faktorer som totalt sett bedöms påverka efterfrågan på svensk pellets mest är råvarupriset, pelletskvaliteten, temperaturvariationen jämfört med normalår, prisskillnaden mellan pellets och alternativen pga styrmedel med förutbestämd nivå samt tillgänglighet av nya råvaror. Utav dessa påverkar de fyra första efterfrågan på pellets från småskaliga kunder och de tre sista pelletsefterfrågan från storskaliga kunder.
The project has studied aspects of introducing a biodegradable bag made of partly fossil biodegradable oils, starch and with dolomite content for collection of food waste. The report is aimed at organizations conducting collection, pretreatment and treatment of food waste, owners of anaerobic digestion facilities and producers of equipment for collection of food waste. The goal was to see if it is possible to develop a biobag with dolomite content that are user friendly, without risk for degradation at the customer, degradable in an anaerobic digester, in conformity with SPCR 120, workable within current pretreatment and with an overall environmental performance on the full life cycle comparable to alternative products such as paper or plastic bags. The project contains three main parts. Part 1 Five different levels of dolomite content have been developed where some hade starch from potatoes and some from maize. User trials have been performed in households and restaurants during the autumn of 2012 and spring of 2013. The households preferred the bio bag over the paper bag. The restaurants preferred the bag with 15 percent dolomite and considered the bags with 25 percent dolomite to have a lower strength. Pretreatment at NSR was performed with 45L bags with 25 percent dolomite. The new biobag got stuck in the machines. Analysis showed that the limits for SPCR120 was mostly achieved. Part 2 Part two investigated the degradability of the biobag with batch anaerobic digestion tests. The testing consisted of graft and substrate to mimic the conditions in an anaerobic reactor. The biodegradable bags were evaluated by comparing the weight loss after digestion at thermophile temperature. The analysed bags were treated as normally done with food waste in the collection areas. Tests showed no contribution to the methane from the biobags, i.e. there was practically no degradation. Biobag 0, 1, 2 and 3 showed no difference in weight. Biobag 3p and the paperbag showed a significant weight loss compared to the abiotic control. Part 3 The environmental assessment of the biobag with dolomite content was performed as a life cycle assessment and an expert judgement of land use related issues. The results show that the biobag with dolomite content has a comparable environmental impact to the paper bag and lower than the plastic bag. Effects on the food waste collection system are much more important than production of the bags from an environmental perspective. The land use shows that production of ingredients for the biobag should be produced in traceable supply chains to ensure that there is no competition with food production. For the scale of swedish food waste collection bags, the production of ingredients is fairly unproblematic.
This short report is part of the project ”Integrated assessment of vehicle fuels with sustainability LCA - social and environmental impacts in a life cycle perspective” financed by the Swedish Knowledge Centre for Renewable Transportation Fuels (f3) and the Swedish Energy Agency. The project aims at a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) of a few selected transport fuels including biomass based and fossil based fuels. The selected transport fuels include (i) Petrol from crude oil originating from oilfields in Nigeria, (ii) Petrol from crude oil originating from oilfields in Russia, (iii) Ethanol based on sugar cane from Brazil and (iv) Ethanol based on corn produced in the USA. The purpose with this report is to present comparable life cycle inventory results for a selection of environmental aspects for the studied transport fuel chains. A brief review of a few existing life cycle assessments of the four selected transport fuel chains was performed. It was found that the reviewed studies did not provide results that are easily comparable. Thus, in order to obtain comparable life cycle assessments, judged crucial for the continued analysis in the project, adapted life cycle inventories from the Ecoinvent centre (Ecoinvent centre, 2014) were adopted and presented in this study. The result will be further analysed in the project.