The first version of an e-tool has been developed, which will help footwear companies know about and improve their legal environmental situation. The tool will also inform footwear companies about the environmental requirements that apply in other countries to which they export their products, International Leather Magazine has reported.
This initiative is partially supported by the European Union under the LIFE+ programme and is coordinated by the Spanish Footwear Technological Institute (Inescop).
Environmental awareness can mean a significant strategic variable to improve the competitiveness of footwear companies and for their medium and long-term development. In order to address this need, the project- ‘Promotion of the Environmental Legislation among European Footwear Industries (ShoeLAW)’- was launched, which is partially supported by the European Union under the LIFE+ programme. The project aims to develop an online legislative and environmental diagnosis tool that allows companies to know about and improve their legal environmental situation.
The ShoeLAW project is coordinated by the Footwear Technological Institute (INESCOP). The project consortium is comprised of partners from five EU member states
To help footwear companies gain access to the legislation in force, the ShoeLAW tool has been developed, which gathers all the legal requirements applicable to them expressed in an easier vocabulary in order to improve their understanding. This feature, together with the user-friendliness of the tool, will help companies perform the self-diagnoses by themselves. In case of failure to comply with one of the requirements, the tool gives some advice on how to amend this failure.
To ShoeLAW environmental self-diagnosis tool can be accessed from the website www.shoelaw.eu.
The ShoeLAW tool has been successfully tested in 40 European footwear companies. Although the ShoeLAW tool has been developed by partners in five European countries, it is ready to be extended to any interested country, whether it is inside or outside the European Union.
