Social Life Cycle Assessment of a Circular Economy System of Lignin-Based Biocoating

Circular Economy is based on two types of cycles: the biological cycle and the technical cycle. The biological cycle has still lacked attention by the scientific community due to its inherent complexity, requiring more studies that evaluate its sustainability. To ensure that circular economy systems are sustainable, economic, environmental, and social aspects should be evaluated and integrated into the circular economy decisions. However, the literature lacks social assessment models that aid implementation of circular economy systems. This article aims to fill these gaps by proposing a new social assessment framework to evaluate and guide a lignin-based coatings value chain, providing a new stakeholders’ engagement plan with recommendations that clearly link the bioeconomy systems implementation with the corporate social responsibility practices. The engagement plan is achieved through the employment of a Social Life Cycle Assessment methodology, which integrates stakeholders’ analysis, namely, a power–interest matrix. This new model will allow practitioners to include mitigation actions to minimize social impacts in the implementation of lignin-based coatings value chains in order to potentiate social benefits that can arise from its implementation. Also, the framework guides practitioners in the stakeholder’s integration and communication, describes the role of each stakeholder, and proposes a set of indicators to monitor their activities. The model is also easily adapted to any other bioeconomy model, allowing social decisions to be integrated into bioeconomy systems implementation.