A core part of our work is a Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) of the lignin supply chain, examining the real human impacts on workers, local communities, and wider society.

We engage directly with industry stakeholders, from biomass suppliers and biorefineries to research institutes, to ground our research in lived supply chain experience. Our goal is not just to innovate, but to innovate fairly, to identify social risks early, and to help shape a bioeconomy that works for people as well as the planet.

On the 3rd of June 2026, our partners at University College Dublin Nishtha Talwar and Nick Holden held an online workshop as part of the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) being conducted under Work Package 6. The S-LCA is a methodology used to understand how a technology or supply chain affects different stakeholder groups i.e. workers, local communities, consumers and society and whether those effects are positive or negative.

The goal of this particular workshop was to draw on the participants’ knowledge and experience as PROSPLIGN researchers to help identify which social issues matter most across the lignin supply chain before the technology scales up.