An ecodesign model based on industry experience

With the increase in environmental legislation facing many industrial sectors organisations are now looking for ways to improve their environmental performance. To a large extent organisations have tended to concentrate on their operations inside the "factory gates" with little regard to the environmental performance of the products they produce. However, this is now changing and some organisations are beginning to take a close look at their products and their effects on the environment during its use phase as well as during the manufacture and disposal phases. At Cranfield University we have carried out a 3 year survey of US, Central European and UK companies claiming to practice ecodesign has been undertaken. Thirty electrical and electronic manufacturers were studied, some through in-depth observation of design programmes, most through semi-structured interviews. The survey and action research sought to understand the way in which these companies practised ecodesign and how they .had implemented ecodesign. A common pattern emerged from the data which suggests that companies successfully implementing ecodesign have many similar experiences. The resulting ecodesign model is presented and discussed, and the factors critical to successful implementation at various stages are explored. The factors cover a range of topics including design management, motivation, design tools, design phases, communication and the designers perspective

Next step in ecodesign: Service-oriented life cycle design

Industry faces a considerable challenge if it is to help achieve the sustainability targets of `factor 10' reduction (i.e. a reduction of 90% of the environmental impact of human activities). One way to tackle this is to examine the hierarchy given by Stevels which illustrates that these improvements have to be made on four levels, with each level increasing both environmental benefit and degree of innovation required in the design process. Ecodesign initially started by examining ways to clean up manufacturing processes to prevent both waste and pollution. In recent years research and practice has moved towards the redesign of products that consider environmental requirements in the design process. The next stage of the hierarchy considers the benefits and mechanisms of replacing products with services. This paper presents collaborative industrial research that is exploring: (a) whether using a service-oriented view increases the designer's ability to design products with a reduced environmental impact; (b) how this change affects designers, and (c) what this means for tools and techniques to support designers and design teams taking such an approach. The paper illustrates ways in which industry and designers can take a service-oriented view and the potential environmental improvements and benefits that can result

Success in environmentally conscious design: How is it achieved and maintained?

As Environmentally Conscious Design (ECD) is growing in importance and an increasing number of companies are beginning to introduce it into their product development processes, it is interesting to establish how companies have made it work. As this concept is still new for many organizations it is difficult to predict exactly what constitutes successful ECD. As part of the DEEDS research project at Cranfield University it was therefore decided to conduct a series of in-depth interviews in thirty companies from the electronic/electrical sector in the UK, Central Europe and USA. This paper presents two of the major research findings from this project. Firstly decisions that have a major environmental impact are largely made in the pre-specification stages of the product development process. Secondly, it is recognized that most companies have developed an information supply system to support ECD and have used people identified as environmental champions to do this. This paper explores the significance of these two findings and highlights the way in which other organizations can learn from these results

Integrating environmental decisions into the product development process. II. the later stages

This paper reports on the results of a three year UK government funded research project entitled design for the environment decision support (DEEDS). As part of this project, a survey of the electronic and electrical industry was carried our in order to understand the way in which industry in the UK, Central Europe and the USA are carrying out ecodesign. The survey also investigated the successes and failures that companies have experienced and the lessons learnt along the way. In this second paper, the authors are concerned with the implementation of environmental considerations post-specification