Incorporating social lifecycle assessment in circularity metrics to avoid the unintended consequences of circular economy

A sustainable transition towards a circular economy requires that businesses evaluate their environmental, economic, and social impact. Since there has been a limited effort for identifying the social impacts of businesses, social life cycle assessment (SLCA) was developed. In this paper, 44 peer-reviewed articles that reported the social consequences of a circular economy transition were identified and reviewed. The review shows that a circular transition may have negative
consequences in waste recovery and recycling due to existing unfair labor practices in this sector or create social risks during material substitution, technology scale-up, or changes in the supply chains. However, uncertainty exists in the results because SLCA does not have a uniformly accepted methodology for data collection and analysis, which hinders the comparability of linear and circular economies. Researchers suggest that better stakeholder mapping, reviewing data collection techniques, and creating consensus-driven standard indicators will improve the social assessment of the circular economy.