1. Life Cycle Analysis of Mohop’s Mokobo Sandal

2. Local Chicago based shoe manufacturer producing eco-friendly footwear. Establish in 2005 by its owner Annie Mohaupt. Mission: strives to produce ecologically- minded, high-quality, comfortable, long-lasting footwear. Annie Mohaupt personally test each of her shoe design by walking 100 miles Mohop shoes are designed to require minimal processing steps and materials to reduce resource waste and energy consumption. It uses CNC router to cut out the wood base, almost all other steps are done by hand. Mohop does its best to source its materials sustainably by using recycled and/or fair-traded materials in its production. Mohop sells its shoes online and at 18 selected retailers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Mohop is a socially-conscious company that partners with Jhoole in India to create opportunities for rural Indian women. 2 Company Background: MohopProduct Lines: MOPEDS MOKOBO BESPOKE

3. Purpose: prepare LCA for Annie Mohaupt, owner of Mohop shoes. Goal: to assess environmental impact of the Mokobo line of sandals to find potential improvement. Scope: LCA is drawn from raw material extraction, intermediates production, product manufacturing, distribution, use to end of life. Interpretation of results analyzes impacts of procedure. System Boundaries: Focuses on Gate-to-Gate, production phase of life cycle with a limited look at Cradle-to-Gate. Functional Unit: One pair of size 6 Mokobo 4.25” height configuration 3 LCA: MOKOBO | Project Scope and Goals

4. 4 LCA: MOKOBO

5. 5 LCA: MOKOBO | Material Input & Output (grayed out process are not included in LCA) Information and material object used in inventory comes from Annie Mohaupt, owner of Mohop. Initial information is processed and transferred into Gabi Software. Some data are estimated according to articles and rough calculation.

6. 6 LCA: MOKOBO | Gabi LCA Plan Assumption: Roughly 70% of materials used in Mokobo shoes came from the basswood, which is rapidly renewable source. Mohop source the wood through a sustainable stewardship supplier. We assume there are less environmental impact on the upstream process. We’ll focus the environmental impact on the materials that are synthetic and non-renewable, nlyon, synthetic rubber, EVA, polyester, polypropylene and rubber cement used for the production phase. Difficulties: Getting Gabi to work, unable to link all process, missing data Finding upstream production information for various materials, energy and resource data Since production of Mohop shoes use non-traditional method, difficult to compare with industry production data.

7. 7 LCA: MOKOBO | Gabi Result

8. 8 LCA: MOKOBO | Recommendations Going Forward: Mohop is considering purchasing a die-cutter or laser cutter to help improve efficiency in its production process. Most of the cutting is done by hand currently. Mohop is going to replace its shoe boxes with tote bags as packaging to promote reuse and deter cardboard box waste. Other Recommendations: Search alternative materials to rubber cement for gluing process. Rubber cement contains Hydrocarbons which generates toxicity that can affect organs such as lungs. Finding alternatives could reduce risk for its workers. If Mohop is replacing manual cutting with laser cutting, CO2 lasers excited by radio frequency (RF) with higher efficiency and more environmentally sound would be recommended vs. the direct current (DC) lasers. However, potential hazardous air emissions must be taken into account for cutting synthetic rubber, EVA or nylon materials. Proper ventilation is required if Mohop is to purchase a laser cutter and further analysis on health impact to worker and environment should be conducted. Insulation for her building and better ventilation would improve air quality for Mohop employees Mohop can set up a manufacturer stewardship / take back program to better serve and build relations with its local customers. Assessment/Recommendations: Greatest impact occurs at raw material production phases. Impacts of Mokobo shoe production are almost negligible by comparison. Most important focus in an environmental sense is careful choice of raw materials. As materials become more environmentally safe and easily recyclable, alternatives should be sought out. Research into recyclable variants of synthetic rubber, nylon, and EVA material to reduce impact and toxicity to landfill. Wood which comprises most of the shoe will slowly biodegrade, and very little else could be done. Potentially, re-soling or re-padding Mokobo shoes could be researched. A cost benefit analysis needs to be done to determine whether this would be worthwhile for Mohop. Current Practice: Already using locally sourced and fairly benign materials to produce its shoes.