Chalmers Conferences, LCM 2013

BRING ON THE ‘SOFT’ SCIENCES: EXPLORING IMPLICATIONS OF GROUNDING LIFE CYCLE METHODS IN THREE SOCIO-MATERIAL PHILOSOPHIES
Mathias Lindkvist, Henrikke Baumann

Last modified: 2014-09-11

Abstract


By not separating product flows from management, we target the little
studied problem of how different management practices actually influence
the environment. We test the socio-material philosophies actor-network
theory, object-oriented ontology and agential realism on the life cycle
assessment (LCA) cases bread and cement, through three examples. We
conclude that socio-materiality point out that managers could benefit from
an increased contextual understanding of the material and energy flows that
their decisions influence. For LCA analysts, it highlights that including
actual practices and action networks of people handling the flows could be
useful for reaching effective use of LCA flow model results.

Keywords


LCM; philosophy of science; socio-material; LCA; case studies

References


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Latour, B. (2007). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lindkvist, M., & Baumann, H. (2010). The environmental significance of management practices: Exploring the
eco-efficiency of 6 cases. 14th European Roundtable on Sustainable Production and Consumption Conference
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October 2010.


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