Climate change requires us to reduce emissions and switch from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources – an undertaking known as the energy transition. In the course of this transformation, the demand for raw materials such as cobalt, nickel, lithium, but also natural graphite, aluminum, and copper, which are needed for the production of current energy storage technologies such as batteries, is increasing. We must therefore critically reflect on the ethical consequences of raw material extraction practices.

The extraction of these materials causes new environmental problems, which in turn lead to social problems, such as conflicts with local communities over land use and access to resources. Serious social challenges that are often discussed in connection with the extraction of raw materials relate to human rights violations due to working conditions (e.g., child and forced labor) as well as health and safety risks. In addition, there are critical, often less tangible problems, such as the loss of cultural heritage and the involvement of indigenous communities.

In this context, social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) aims to assess negative and positive social and socio-economic impacts along the supply chain of a product or service. Although S-LCA is primarily developed and applied by engineers, the method raises fundamental philosophical questions: How can social impacts be measured and assessed? How can they be recorded, categorized, and assigned to cause-and-effect relationships? The focus here is on critically examining the impact categories, subcategories, and impact pathways with regard to the question of what is missing in S-LCA from an ethical perspective. The dissertation therefore explores what impacts should be considered and which normative theories can be used to determine them.

By shifting the focus from an empirical-technical perspective – what is and what can be measured – to a political-normative perspective – what should be measured –, the debate on ethically relevant impacts of raw material mining opens up. This thesis aims to bridge the gap between the broader debates on energy justice and the formal methods of sustainability analysis in engineering sciences.

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