Social sustainability indicators: A comprehensive review with application in the energy sector

Sustainability is achieved by fulfilling economic, environmental, and social goals. Until recently, social sustainability indicators had not received much attention in the literature. Social sustainability and its indicators are poorly understood, which makes it somewhat difficult to oversee the design and imple-mentation of sustainability projects. This paper responds to this by investigating Social Sustainability In-dicators (SSIs) across many sectors to learn how they could potentially apply to the energy sector, with special attention given to classifying those indicators into energy supply chains (ESCs), stakeholder, and impact levels. It does this by critical reviewing 420 social indicators in the literature and proposing a practical set of categories related to the energy sector. The findings show that the majority of SSIs ad -dress the production and demand stages of ESC. SSIs related to employees are also common, based on stakeholder analysis. The analysis highlighted the importance of internal stakeholders, in particular, in achieving social sustainability. The number of SSIs at the strategic level far exceeds those at the tac-tical and operational levels. There is no consensus on definitions of SSIs, and, subsequently, there is no agreement on their measurement or the data needed for that purpose. Potential SSIs that may conflict with one another are investigated to identify implementation challenges. The contribution of this paper is classifying the SSIs, identifying the gaps, investigating implementation challenges, discussing implica-tions, and proposing future research directions to promote awareness about renewable energy for better progress towards sustainability.(c) 2022 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This paper addresses the lack of research on social sustainability indicators in the literature by investigating social sustainability indicators across various sectors, with a focus on their applicability to the energy sector. The findings highlight the importance of social sustainability indicators in energy supply chains, particularly in the production and demand stages. The paper also emphasizes the significance of internal stakeholders in achieving social sustainability. Furthermore, it identifies implementation challenges and proposes future research directions to promote awareness and progress towards sustainability.