This article focuses on identifying challenges on social life cycle assessment tools,
based on a case study on the Danish design furniture company, SAYSHWO. The S-LCA
methodology is based on LCA and was first presented in 2009 by the United Nations
Programme Guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products and organizations [1].
These guidelines were supposed to act as the framework for doing assessments on potential
impacts of a product but instead created barriers for the companies trying to use it. Several
important aspects of the S-LCA have been overlooked and the interpretations become too
unrealistic and based on assumptions. The research contributes to the social sustainability
field by 1) identifying social assessment tools to use in a design process, which can enlighten
decisionmakers and researcher looking for a tool to use, looking from a life cycle view, 2)
create a common definition of social sustainability in design, and 3) sets the boundaries for
creating new assessment tools by introducing a design solution that can guide the
development process of such tools.