Abstract
M.Tech. (Quality and Operations Management)
This paper focuses on the social impact of the sugar industry in South Africa. A social impact assessment is a method that aims to assess social features of the product and their positive and negative aspects in terms of its processing of raw material to the final stages of its disposal. The objectives of the study were guided by the guidelines on social life cycle assessment of products of the South African Sugar Industry developed by the United Nations Environmental Programme and SETAC initiatives. The main aim is to add value to the social assessment methodology and application techniques of social impacts assessment, focusing on the sugar industry in South Africa. The study’s main focus is on health and safety, freedom of association, employee’s wages, gender equality in the workplace, working conditions, crime and the social wellbeing of the communities that surround the sugar industry’s operations. Field research, historic comparative research, interviews and questionnaires were used for the collection of relevant data. The areas that grow sugar were identified to have low unemployment rates as compared to areas that do not grow sugar. Although it is good that the sugar industry decreases the level of employment in some areas, the decrease in sugar production during the season of 2010-2011 could have major financial and social challenges for these areas, and could also impact the rest of South Africa. The other social impacts discussed above are also assessed and presented in the paper.