Social Life Cycle Assessment for agricultural sustainability: comparison of two methodological proposals in a paradigmatic perspective

Abstract

The purpose of the present research is to provide an explanation about the diversity of methodological approaches proposed until today for SLCA, tracking down its roots in the cultural and scientific heritage of social sciences, especially sociology and management sciences. This will help to shift the current methodological debate in SLCA to an epistemological level, through a critical review about the underlying paradigms that have been applied in SLCA literature until now. Secondly, the research highlights the possible consequences of different paradigmatic stances in SLCA by means of the application, to an important agricultural sector in Calabria, of two different methodological proposals set up from opposite paradigms (post-positivism and interpretivism) and compared in terms of research process and typology of insights.