Social life cycle assessment of primary coffee production in Brazil: A risk-based identification of social hotspots

With an estimated consumption of around 3 billion cups per day and global production of around 10 million tons, coffee is one of the world's leading agricultural commodities. However, behind this beverage stand approximately 25 million smallholder farmers and their families, whose livelihoods depend directly on coffee cultivation, highlighting the need to critically assess the social impacts associated with this activity. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to identify social hotspots in primary coffee production using Type I Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA), considering the case of Brazil. The analysis, based on a multi-stakeholder framework, showed that the main social hotspots concern high risks of child labour, low freedom of association and collective bargaining, excessive working hours, and inadequate wages. The coexistence of high generative capacity in the sector, evidenced by high embodied value added and high risks related to remuneration and trade union freedom, could indicate a possible structural asymmetry in the distribution of economic benefits. These findings suggest that high value generation capacity does not automatically lead to a proportional distribution of benefits along the supply chain. Finally, from an environmental and economic perspective, primary production appears to be relatively efficient in its use of land and blue water but presents a structural criticality in terms of climate performance, implying that, for the same economic value generated, the coffee sector may be more exposed to regulatory shocks than low-carbon activities.