Social Life Cycle Assessment of Organic Cotton Trousers in a Multinational Supply Chain

The textile industry is highly globalized, with production processes spread across multiple countries. While environmental impacts have been widely examined, less attention has been paid to how social risks are distributed along these supply chains. This study applies a Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) framework, utilizing the Social Hotspots Database (SHDB), to assess social risks in the production of cotton trousers. The analysis focuses on a supply chain linking Turkey, Thailand, and Cambodia, and integrates factory-level data with sector-level risk indicators. The results show that social risks are unevenly distributed across the supply chain. The highest risks occur in fabric production in Thailand and garment manufacturing in Cambodia, particularly in relation to wages, labor conditions, and occupational health. These findings point to the importance of labor-intensive stages in shaping overall risk patterns. The results suggest that globalization does not eliminate social risks, but rather shifts them across countries with different institutional conditions. These findings highlight the need to better account for social factors in establishing sustainable supply chains.