The establishment of new value chains raises expectations in economic and social benefits. To determine whether these expectations can be fulfilled or whether there are also negative consequences, social aspects should be assessed as early as the R&D phase. Potential social impacts can be assessed with the help of a social life cycle assessment (SLCA). A common problem in SLCA studies is the large number of social aspects. Thus, it is important to prioritize the most relevant aspects. Scholars agree that socioeconomic indicators should not be selected on a purely intuitive and common sense basis and that a standardized approach is missing. A three-step process has been developed to identify the most vulnerable and relevant social aspects. These three steps were implemented into a case study to empirically test the method. Short-rotation-coppice as an alternative form of agricultural dendromass production is one possibility to obtain wood resources for the processing of bio-based products. The use of agricultural land for dendromass production promises additional income for the region’s farmers and job opportunities for the local population. The extant literature shows that the most frequently addressed impacts are related to workers’ health and safety aspects. The outcome of this study aims to support future research by identifying an appropriate approach for the selection of indicators in SLCA. For studies with a similar focus, the proposed set of indicators can be used as a framework in itself or serve as a basis for the choice of relevant social indicators.

新价值链的建立提高了对经济和社会效益的期望。为了确定这些期望是否可以实现或是否还会产生负面影响，应早在研发阶段就对社会方面进行评估。可以借助社会生命周期评估 (SLCA) 来评估潜在的社会影响。SLCA 研究中的一个常见问题是大量的社会方面。因此，重要的是优先考虑最相关的方面。学者们一致认为，社会经济指标的选择不应纯粹基于直觉和常识，并且缺少标准化的方法。已经制定了一个三步过程来确定最脆弱和最相关的社会方面。这三个步骤被实施到一个案例研究中，以经验性地测试该方法。作为农业树状体生产的替代形式的短轮伐林是获得用于加工生物基产品的木材资源的一种可能性。将农业用地用于树状体生产有望为该地区的农民带来额外收入，并为当地人口提供就业机会。现有文献表明，最常提及的影响与工人的健康和安全方面有关。本研究的结果旨在通过确定选择 SLCA 指标的适当方法来支持未来的研究。对于具有类似重点的研究，建议的指标集本身可以用作框架，也可以作为选择相关社会指标的基础。