Contribuição da análise ergonômica do trabalho na avaliação social do ciclo de vida de artefatos de pedra sabão: estudo de caso em Santa Rita de Ouro Preto

Abstract

The basic principle in the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is to evaluate the environmental impacts. For this purpose, the methodology investigates the inputs and outputs of all the life stages of the product under study. The need to include social aspects in LCA was recently observed and the methodology is now called Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA). The SLCA enables companies to assess the social impact of their products or services in order to invest in improvements, permitting the spreading of technologies which are compatible with the use of their resources. However, there is still no consensus on a methodology for the inclusion of social aspects in LCA. The Ergonomic Work Analysis (EWA) is concerned with the interaction of the user with the product throughout its life cycle. The EWA, as the SLCA, must be performed in the processing units and the parameters must be investigated in accordance with what is more valuable to society. In order to develop the SLCA methodology, it is emphasized that it may have contributions from an EWA investigation. Therefore, the objective is to investigate the contribution of the latter to SLCA. In order to achieve that, it is performed a case study in soapstone craft production units at Santa Rita de Ouro Preto, an Ouro Preto MG district. Relying on EWA elements, the research aims to study the social aspects involved in this production system taking the activity of producing soapstone pots as reference. A review of the literature on the methodology and application of LCA is presented, as well as its relationship with the soapstone artifacts production process. As the inclusion of the social aspects in LCA is important for this research, the literature review also includes this issue and the possible interface between AET and ASCV. The results were obtained in terms of the productive lifecycle artifacts soapstone and social issues involved in this process, and lead to conclusions on the potential gains of using the AET approach in ASCV.