PERCEPCIONES DE UN FABRICANTE DE CALZADO SOBRE MEJORAS BASADAS EN EL ANÁLISIS DEL CICLO DE VIDA

Abstract

The footwear sector generates environmental impacts affecting to different stages of the life cycle depending of the materials and processes of manufacturing selected. The companies are forced to be competitive and add value to products. A kind of add value is improving the environmental performance of the products, which means saving time and costs too. In this article, we review the perceptions of a Spanish company of footwear to implement different proposals based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The methodology followed is composed by 3 stages: LCA simplified of ten pairs of shoes, proposals of improvements based in LCA simplified, and the evaluation of the proposals by the company, according to agreed criteria. The results of this case of study are exploratory about the level of acceptance of the improvements form environmental point of view, and this show that is necessary improve the knowledge about the life cycle concept, although there is a positive willingness to add the environmental point of view in design decisions. However, carry out improvements based on LCA is secondary to market trends. How to add value to the product depends of the customers demand. Keywords: Footwear sector; LCA; Perceptions