Lean-green synergy awareness: a portuguese survey

Abstract

Although Lean has been around for some decades, the thorough contribution towards a greener industrial activity is still not completely known, therefore its use and application is justified mainly for the purpose of improvements on productivity, product quality and consumer satisfaction. The authors reviewed the nature of this synergetic link, aiming at a dual approach towards further effectiveness on both the production activities and the environmental impacts. This paper presents a survey on industrial companies, located in the north of Portugal, aiming for an enhanced understanding on the contemporary awareness on the Lean-Green link. Results of the study show that a great majority of the respondents do effectively know and apply Lean strategies, but a rather small fraction only know the virtues of considering the cleaner production lemma for justifying the application of Lean. The positive multi-dimensional outcomes, seem therefore rather unintentional, and accordingly, should be encouraged and improved.