Social Impact Dimension of Seaweed Farming Blue Economy in Zanzibar
Application of Social Life Cycle Assessment of Sustainability
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13135/2704-9906/12495Keywords:
Social impact, Seaweed, Farming, Blue economy, SLCA, SustainabilityAbstract
Seaweed farming is one of the strategic productive sectors in Zanzibar as it contributes to employment and economic growth. It provides livelihood sources for small-scale coastal fishing communities. The sector is the third largest export, providing employment to more than 25,000 people, 90 percent of them being women. This sector is projected to increase production systems and employment through the established manufacturing farming. Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) is an emerging framework for sustainability assessment of processes, companies and products throughout their life cycle that is popularly known in the Global North. Seaweed farming, as one of the blue economy activities, is seen as a contributor to sustainable development in Zanzibar. The study core aim is to assess the potential social impact of seaweed farming on various sub-categories of stakeholders using S-LCA in accordance with the UNEP-SETAC sustainability assessment framework.
The study identifies the stakeholder categories and sub-categories whose positive impact is more pronounced on community stakeholders. Two stakeholder groups were considered (workers and local communities) as those that had better representation of the seaweed farming. The analytic approach carried out on the functional unit of the study allowed assessing social impact of the process and product in all phases from cradle-to-grave, i.e. from on-farm production of seaweed products, factory processing to use phase. The study identifies the positive impacts on community stakeholders. The study contributes to the sustainability body of knowledge by identifying and mitigating the social and economic impacts of the seaweed farming in order to improve labour conditions in Zanzibar Seaweed industry aligned with the global Sustainable Development Goals. It also contributes to the development of a new production system that stresses on sustainability challenges and offers a novel methodological approach to sustainability assessment in the East African context. The study results contribute to scholarly work on S-LCA as a methodological tool to inform business decisions, assessing social impact of products on stakeholders and therefore inform policy decisions.
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