Social Sustainability Assessment in Livestock Production: A Social Life Cycle Assessment Approach

Abstract

This study evaluates the social performance of monoculture (MC), intensive silvopastoral (ISP), and native silvopastoral (NSP) livestock production systems in the tropical region of southeastern Mexico through a social life cycle assessment (SCLA) approach. The methodological framework proposed by the United Nations Environmental Program/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) (2009) was employed based on a scoring approach with a performance scale ranging from 1 (very poor) to 4 (outstanding). Twelve livestock ranches for calf production were evaluated using 18 impact subcategories associated with the categories “human rights”, “working conditions”, “health and safety”, “socioeconomic repercussions”, and “governance”. The stakeholders evaluated were workers, the local community, society, and value chain actors. The ranches had performance scores between 1.78 (very poor) and 2.17 (poor). The overall average performance of the ranches by production system was 1.98, 1.96, and 1.97 for the MC, ISP, and NSP systems, respectively. The statistical analysis shows that there is no significant difference in the social performance of the livestock production systems. This assessment indicates that the cattle ranches analyzed in Mexico have poor or very poor social performance. The results show that socioeconomic and political contexts exert a greater influence on the social performance of livestock production systems than does their type of technology.

Taking Stock of Social Sustainability and the U.S. Beef Industry

“…Fifth and finally, our interviewees consistently emphasized strong community relations at multiple scales (for example, between neighbors, producers and consumers, and urban and rural communities), dialogue across difference, and ongoing social learning by all members of the beef industry as key indicators of social sustainability. The prevalence of these topics in our interviews stood out given their absence in the scholarly literature, though we did find brief mention of governance and rancher connection to community [18,52]). This discrepancy suggests that these dimensions of social sustainability have received inadequate attention and require deeper attention in sustainability frameworks and evaluation tools.…”

“…One key source is Rivera-Huerta et al's study of twelve private cow-calf ranches in southeastern Mexico, three of which used monoculture, five of which used intensive silvopastoral systems, and four of which used native silvopastoral production systems. The study evaluates the twelve ranches for the social sustainability indicators of human rights, working conditions, and health and safety, and shows that there is little difference in the rankings between the three production systems and that all twelve ranches rank poorly on these indicators [52]. Another study evaluates the role of cattle ranching in achieving the tenth sustainable development goal to reduce inequality in Paraguay and Bolivia [53].…”

Social-LCA. Methodological Proposal Applied to Physical Activity Program Implementation into Old People’s Routines

“…This article evaluates the social and socioeconomic aspects of the implementation of physical exercise programs for the elderly with the aim of proposing a basis for applying this methodology as a system for evaluating the social impact of this activity. The study follows the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines for being the guides that define the applicable methodologies for life cycle analysis [25][26][27].…”

Social Impact Analysis of Products under a Holistic Approach: A Case Study in the Meat Product Supply Chain

“…A literature review shows that the application of S-LCA under a Circular Economy approach is lacking application in referring to suppliers' selection or creating indicators to measure sustainability. In the case of the meat industry, some analyses cover just the farming phase (calf farming in Mexico) [24]. The closest to our case is a study about the Swedish pork production sector that was published in 2020, focusing on the analysis of differences between organic and conventional production at a sectoral level [16].…”