Abstract This paper compares the social impact of the steel industry in Belgium, China, and the United States as well as the effects of substituting fossil coal with waste wood following the social Lifecycle Assessment (s-LCA) principles defined by the UNEP/SETAC guidelines. It also aims to be beneficial for practitioners by introducing the s-LCA method and its application to the steel industry. A simplified approach is used by identifying social impacts via the social hotspot database and basing the analysis on national figures for the steel industry. The analysis demonstrates that social risks in the production chain of a Belgian steel mill are mainly situated in the iron ore and coal mining area; for the steel mill in China in the steel-making process itself as well as in coal and limestone mining, whereas the risks are rather equally distributed across the production chain in the United States. As for replacing fossil coal with waste wood, the analysis shows that the effects of this substitution process depend on the location of the steel factory and the previous use of waste wood. Graphical Abstract