The European Confederation of the Footwear Industry (CEC) presented a new footwear carbon footprint calculation tool developed under the European project CO2shoe at the “Green Shoes for a Sustainable Life” International Footwear Workshop on Sustainability, which will help footwear companies to adopt the best decision to improve their environmental performance in production whilst cutting costs.
Global markets and consumers demand companies to include sustainability in their business strategy, and therefore new tools and methods are needed to support businesses to introduce sustainability in their organisational decisions. The European Footwear industry can now count on a new tool, recently developed and tested under the C02Shoe, a project co-funded by the European Commission under the LIFE+ programme. The tool will play a significant role in identifying the areas that most require action.
The CEC, a partner in the C02Shoe project, disseminated the use of the tool at the International Footwear Workshop on Sustainability “Green Shoes for a Sustainable life”, which was held on 28th July 2016 at the GDS Trade Fair in Dusseldorf. More than 80 people from the footwear community, including brands, SMEs, and media participated in the workshop.
The CO2Shoe tool calculates C02 emissions throughout the lifecycle of a pair of shoes, which means that companies will be able to identify which stages of production and packaging produce the most C02, as well as how much C02 is involved in the distribution of footwear and up to the end of the product’s lifecycle.
By using this tool, companies will be able:
- To reduce their costs by optimising their production processes, use of resources, raw material consumption, and use of electricity and water
- To improve, in an environmental sense, the new shoe model they launch into the market
- To increase sales and employment opportunities by meeting consumer demands and suppliers who value environmentally friendly products
- To contribute to the fight against climate change
The CEC also presented the results of the project’s Pilot Action in which 16 companies from 4 different countries (Spain, Italy, Poland, and Portugal) tested the footprint calculation tool on 36 footwear models. The results showed that the stage of the footwear’s lifecycle which most contributed to C02 emissions was the manufacture of footwear components with 58%, followed by the manufacture of packaging (16%), and assembly and finishing (11%). A year later, those companies that incorporated the proposed changes to obtain a more sustainable model, will have the opportunity to measure the carbon footprint again in order to verify its reduction.
A sustainable strategy will reinforce the performance of the business and simultaneously have a positive influence on social and environmental conditions, and this new carbon footprint calculation tool will certainly contribute to its success. Companies interested in the CO2shoe tool can visit www.co2shoe.eu.
Press release
C.E.C.
GDS, Düsseldorf, Germany, 28th July 2016