• Energy Research

The growing need for transparency in the field of corporate social responsibility is now leading us to consider the question of consumer information at product level. However, when costing models were first conceived, consumers were overlooked and a financial perspective was systematically considered. We are currently in a position to take a critical step back, showing how management tools can blind organizations to certain social and negative externalities issues. At the same time, scientific and technological progress has led to the development of new databases and approaches, so that we can now examine how life-cycle analysis methods can be reconciled with historical, albeit recent, costing techniques from a strictly monetary and economic angle. From a semantic point of view, the classic second-generation approach, known as Time-Driven ABC (Activity-Based-Costing), has long relied on working time estimation as a crucial parameter enhancing precision in cost calculation, unlike the traditional ABC which involves a multi-driver approach. This parameter is then multiplied by a coefficient known as Capacity Cost Rate (CCR) to determine the cost of internal activities carried out by the company. In contrast, Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) makes use of the working time as an activity variable, which enables interlinking input/output flows for a given product system and thus calculating the social inventory indicators. This divergence leaves certain crucial social aspects, such as the location of suppliers with weak social protection, unaccounted for in TD-ABC. In light of this background understanding, our research aims to bridge this gap by exploring complementarity between S-LCA and TD-ABC to go towards more socially responsible cost and impact-modelling approaches. While TD-ABC can be extended to encompass social aspects informing thus the decision-makers, S-LCA can benefit from the cost data provided by TD-ABC to foster its implementation. This research presents an innovative approach that effectively merges TD-ABC and S-LCA, offering insights into the social dimensions of sustainability throughout the value chain. To do so, company's data are redefined to capture the temporal and geographical diversity of resources-based activities by using the PSILCA database. A two-dimensional matrix is proposed combining the geographical locations of resource and products-related activities to the temporal dimension offered by TD-ABC. Furthermore, the social risks are afterwards calculated based on this matrix, offering a comprehensive view of internal and external activities along the value chain, encompassing diverse potential social impacts. This modification better integrates social considerations into costing models and extends this information to the product and service level. Our study illuminates the conceptual framework and practical implementation of this method, underscoring its potential benefits for businesses aiming to analyze their social and environmental impacts and costs in the same time. The inclusion of comprehensive databases, such as PSILCA, enriches the analysis, enabling well- -informed decision-making. Our framework offers a promising avenue for management accountants, sustainability experts, and decision-makers to align economic and social sustainability goals in a dynamic, data-driven manner. Although this approach remains primarily descriptive, it calls for further development to explore the intricate interactions between financial and social aspects in accounting.

Local authorities have a strategic role in mitigating the environmental impacts of the transport sector. However, they struggle to integrate environmental issues into their decision-making processes, especially planning. In the European context of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan approach and Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs), this paper scrutinises three French localities to determine the current best practices and limitations for designing mobility plans and integrating environmental issues. Several limitations are identified: (1) limited expertise in defining and characterising actions and objectives, which complexifies plans’ design, understanding, and monitoring; (2) a lack of a framework to conduct long-term quantitative environmental assessments and to use the results to influence decision effectively; and (3) monitoring processes are barely described in the documents, and the planning horizon where objectives are defined is not in sync with the indicators’ mandatory evaluation period. This French case study thus reveals that European planning practices must be further analysed and improved to deal with the rising environmental concerns, e.g. through an operational framework to design mobility plans with effective integration of environmental issues.

AbstractWithin the on-going ecological transition, mobility systems are considered as sociotechnical systems that raise several challenges for local authorities due to the different levels of decision, a complex stakeholder network and the numerous objectives to be dealt with. Designers are therefore seeking to develop new frameworks to support local authorities moving towards more sustainable mobility systems. Based on the French context, this study relies on an analysis of the regulation and an interview-based survey that depict the mobility design from the local authorities’ perspective. First, it investigates the objectives defined in the law and the difficulties met by local authorities. Then, it highlights the main political, organisational, and knowledge barriers for sustainable mobility. Finally, it proposes a set of recommendations to create a framework to better define and prioritise the objectives, ensure efficient planning and monitoring, clarify the interactions between actors, and enhance mobility plans.

Abstract Purpose Investigating potential social and socio-economic impacts should play a key role for the development of sustainable mobility alternatives. Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) is becoming increasingly important to ensure holistic sustainability assessments. The present work aims at identifying and evaluating social and socio-economic impact subcategories in S-LCA. A novel participatory approach implying all concerned stakeholders is proposed to select relevant impact subcategories and thus contribute to a thorough interpretation of S-LCA results. It is applied to assess electric and conventional vehicles. Methodology This paper describes a comprehensive step-by-step S-LCA framework. The innovation of this work consists in defining a structured S-LCA framework integrating a systematic approach based on two stages: (1) a sectorial risk analysis for the identification of impact subcategories and (2) a participatory approach for their prioritization. The proposed participatory approach considers all concerned stakeholders to enable the selection of the most relevant impact subcategories. A set of social inventory indicators is attributed to subcategories that were perceived as the most relevant. These are used to perform the social evaluation and carry out a full analysis in the result interpretation allowing thus to integrate a multi-actor perspective to the materiality assessment. Results The defined S-LCA framework is implemented to compare two mobility scenarios, corresponding to electric and conventional vehicle technologies. A new set of mobility-related impact subcategories is proposed for users’ stakeholder. Following the new designed participatory approach, subcategories for all stakeholders are prioritized according to different actors’ perceptions. For example, “safe and healthy living conditions,” “local employment,” and “delocalization and migration” were perceived for local communities as the most relevant subcategories by the different consulted stakeholders (industrial, academic, and public actors and users). These results also showed that social significance varies depending on the consulted actors and on the geographical area of the study. Using PSILCA database, we have investigated the subcategories that were perceived as the most relevant. Results for the evaluation and interpretation phases are presented for both transportation technologies. Conclusions This approach aims at increasing local relevance of S-LCA results and their representativeness. Results for the considered mobility scenarios have demonstrated the need to extend the scope of the materiality assessment, generally used for determining subcategories’ social significance from a single stakeholder perspective, by involving other stakeholders into the prioritization stage. Moreover, the proposed comprehensive S-LCA framework integrating the participatory approach is general enough to be applied to other product systems and sectors.

Recent studies have advocated that digital technologies (DTs) positively affect the transition of a linear economy model to a circular economy (CE) model and facilitate enterprises in implementing circular strategies. Despite this general statement, the literature still overlooks how enterprises should apply various DTs of Industry 4.0 across the entire product lifecycle to operationalize CE-related strategies. To fill this gap, this paper proposes a conceptual framework exploring DTs in terms of CE operationalization from the perspective of the product lifecycle. Based on insights gained through a systematic literature review, we clarify how DTs can facilitate CE performance objectives through the three stages of the product lifecycle: product design, product use, and product recovery or recycling. Furthermore, we study how various Industry 4.0 DTs, such as the Internet of things, big data, and cloud computing, are utilized to operationalize the transition toward a CE. DTs applied to the service-oriented product-service system contributes innovation into circular business models to make full use of idle resources and provide high-quality personalized services. We have adopted three performance objectives: using fewer materials and resources, extending product lifespan, and closing the loop to evaluate the effects of DTs in promoting CE development. By investigating how DTs affect CE performance objectives, the conceptual framework developed in this paper advances the knowledge regarding the role of DTs as an enabler of CE from the product lifecycle. Our findings provide a practical reference enabling researchers and managers to harness the potential of DTs to support CE transition.