Since Kyoto Protocol, the international community is compromising itself to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. However, the implementation of energy policies, such as the construction of renewable energy installations, in many cases doesn’t suit with local perceived necessities and causes...

In this article, a real-world case- study is presented with two general objectives: to give a clear and simple illustrative example of application of social multi-criteria evaluation (SMCE) in the field of rural renewable energy policies, and to help in understanding to what extent and under...

In this paper we compare the resource flows of Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru between 1980 and 2000. In this time span, the domestic extraction of materials increased in the four countries, mainly due to the mining sector in Chile and Peru, biomass and oil in Ecuador and construction minerals...

Material throughput is a means of measuring the so-called social metabolism, or physical dimensions of a society’s consumption, and can be taken as an indirect and approximate indicator of sustainability. Material flow accounting can be used to test the dematerialisation hypothesis, the idea...

Recently increasing attention has been paid to complementing environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with social aspects. The paper discusses the selection of social impacts and indicators from existing frameworks like Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) and Social Impact Assessment (SIA). Two...