Journal
ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
Volume 42, Issue 4, Pages 571-596Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/03085147.2012.760349
Keywords
governance; sustainability; supply chains; standards; environment; metrics
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This paper examines the recent rise of life cycle assessment (LCA) as a supply chain governance tool. Many big brand retailers and manufacturers, as well as a number of governments, see LCA as a potentially valuable means to measure, communicate and thereby improve the sustainability' of material goods. The paper's arguments are threefold. First, the appeal of LCA's quantitative and seeming holistic methods must be understood in light of certain tensions and imperatives endemic to contemporary supply chain capitalism. Second, this appeal is tentative; it is far from clear that LCA can capture the complexity of products' lives' in measures that are simultaneously practical, legible and scientifically credible. Third, current public- and private-sector sustainability initiatives involving LCA offer opportunities to explore the increasingly important roles of scientific and technical expert communities in supply chain governance.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available