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The aim of the article is to present the environmental effects of changes in material composition in selected internal combustion engines used in passenger cars using LCA analysis. The levels of energy consumption and emissions of pollutants related to material inputs occurring at the stage of engine production have been determined. The simplified LCA model presented in the paper shows the energy consumption and total CO2 and SO2 emissions on the basis of the mass of materials from which the engine is made. The research results presented in the paper give a picture of a modern passenger car engine on the basis of wear and the degree of recovery of materials used for its construction.

Experience and evaluation research on sustainable products’ design is increasingly supported by eye-tracking tools. In particular, many studies have investigated the effect of gazing at or fixating on Areas of Interest on products’ evaluations, and in a number of cases, they have inferred the critical graphical elements leading to the preference of sustainable products. This paper is motivated by the lack of generalizability of the results of these studies, which have predominantly targeted specific products and Areas of Interest. In addition, it has also been overlooked that the observation of some Areas of Interest, despite not specifically targeting sustainable aspects, can lead consumers to prefer or appreciate sustainable products in any case. Furthermore, it has to be noted that sustainable products can be recognized based on their design (shape, material, lack of waste generated) and/or, more diffusedly, information clearly delivered on packaging and in advertising. With reference to the latter, this paper collected and classified Areas of Interest dealt with in past studies, markedly in eco-design and green consumption, and characterized by their potential generalizability. Specifically, the identified classes of Areas of Interest are not peculiar to specific products or economic sectors. These classes were further distinguished into “Content”, i.e., the quality aspect they intend to highlight, and “Form”, i.e., the graphical element used as a form of communication. This framework of Areas of Interest is the major contribution of the paper. Such a framework is needed to study regularities across multiple product categories in terms of how the observation of Areas of Interest leads to product appreciation and value perception. In addition, the potential significant differences between sustainable and commonplace products can be better investigated.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the environmental impacts of the Conector® Enciclopedia, and to recommend and apply improvement strategies based on eco-design principles. For this purpose, the work develops a methodology that integrates life cycle assessment (LCA) and eco-design. The LCA was performed using the GaBi 9.2 software and the CML 2002 method. To evaluate the influence of the operating hours of the toy two use scenarios were defined: 'minimum use' and 'continuous use'. The comparison was made on a common functional unit of 'hour of use'. Results showed that the environmental impact of the original toy was heavily dependent on the use phase, given the comparatively large impact caused by employed batteries. Beside the batteries, the electrical and electronic circuit and the game board were the components with the greatest environmental impact in the production stage. Based on the environmental profile of the toy, different strategies were identified, proposed to the company and developed in an eco-designed toy version. The new eco-designed version of the toy achieved approximately 50% impact reductions in all impact categories in the production stage, with very small investments. Despite the environmental benefits found in the eco-design product, the paper concludes that also the consumer acceptance and the technical and economic viability should be considered, trying to maximize the ecoefficiency of the solutions. The authors acknowledge the financial support given by the Generalitat de Catalunya and the EDUCA Borras Company, as well as the active involvement of their technicians in the ECOJOGUINA Project. The Unesco Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change-ESCI was awarded the 2008 Environment Prize by the Government of Catalonia (Premi Medi Ambient de la Generalitat de Catalunya) for the ECOJOGUINA Project under the category Universities.

Modern lifestyles have popularised the use of food containers, also known as food savers or Tupperware. However, their environmental impacts are currently unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper presents the first comprehensive assessment of the life cycle environmental sustainability of reusable plastic and glass food savers and evaluates different options for improvements, focusing on European conditions. Taking a cradle-to-grave approach, the paper considers twelve environmental impacts, including global warming potential (GWP), acidification, eutrophication, human and ecotoxicities. The results suggest that, for example, the total GWP of using both types of food saver in the European Union (EU) amounts to 653 kt CO2 eq./year, equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of Bermuda. The use stage is the main contributor to the impacts (>40%), related to the washing of containers. Glass food savers have 12%-64% higher impacts than the plastic and should have up to 3.5 times greater lifespan to match the environmental footprint of plastic containers. Three improvement scenarios have been considered at the EU level for the year 2020: low-carbon electricity mix; implementation of the EU eco-design regulation for dishwashers; and adoption of more resource-efficient hand dishwashing techniques. The results suggest that the implementation of all three improvement options would reduce the impacts by 12%-47%. The option with the greatest potential for reducing the impacts (12%-27%) is improved hand dishwashing to reduce the amount of water, energy and detergents used. Thus, policy makers and manufacturers should devise strategies to raise awareness and guide consumers in adopting these techniques with the aim of reducing the environmental impacts associated with reusable food savers used by millions of people worldwide.

The service sector has the potential to play an instrumental role in the shift towards circular economy due to its strategic position between manufacturers and end-users. However, there is a paucity of supporting methodologies and real-life applications to demonstrate how service-oriented companies can implement circular economy principles in daily business practice. This paper addresses this gap by analysing the potential of service-oriented companies in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector to build and implement circular economy business models. To this end, the Backcasting and Eco-design for the Circular Economy (BECE) framework is applied in an ICT firm. BECE, previously developed and demonstrated for product-oriented applications, has been developed further here for applications in the service sector. By shifting the focus from a product-oriented approach to a user-centred eco-design, the paper shows how ICT firms can identify, evaluate and prioritise sustainable business model innovations for circular economy. The two most promising business model innovations are explored strategically with the aim of designing circular economy models consistent with the company's priorities of customer satisfaction and profitability. The findings suggest that ICT companies may be able to support the deployment of a circular economy in the service-oriented technology sector. Importantly, micro and small organisations can play a fundamental role if provided with macro-level support to overcome company-level barriers. Finally, the BECE framework is shown to be a valuable resource to explore, analyse and guide the implementation of circular economy opportunities in service-oriented organisations. Further research to verify the application of the findings to other service-oriented organisations is recommended.

The case study presented in this paper is a follow up of a topic already examined in previous studies relating the life cycle assessment (LCA) of a chemical treatment process used to recycle a specific type of carbon fiber (CF) reinforced thermoset composite. In the present study the LCA is coupled with the life cycle cost (LCC) analysis for the economic assessment. Furthermore, the research sought to specify the best available technology for the reuse of the materials recovered through the chemical recycling process. The new LCA results are more reliable and more current than the scenario presented in the previous LCA studies. In the previous scenario the possibility to recover long carbon fibers “ready to use” was considered. This scenario, even if under investigation by the recycling company, is still not possible for technological limitations as the fibers recovered after the chemical process require further treatments before being used in thermoset composite. Consequently, a more feasible technology was investigated and, according to our laboratory research results, one practical way to recycle the CF-thermoset composites is to shred them before the chemical treatment in order to recover shredded CFs and epoxy thermoplastic from cleavable thermosets. These materials can be easily compounded together to manufacture a CF-thermoplastic composite through injection moulding as we demonstrated herein through some laboratory experiments. The LCA and LCC were accounted for the recycling process via solvolysis up to the recovery phase of the epoxy-thermoplastic resin and the short carbon fibers. The paper presents laboratory test results of the remanufacture of the two reclaimed materials for the production of a thermoplastic CF-composite.

Circular economy ambitions demand considering lifecycle of products within product development. From the perspective of the circular economy, environmental considerations should, for example, increasingly entail product's use phase not only to increase product's energy-efficiency, but also to prolong the time in use. This paper investigates how these considerations are addressed within information and communications technology (ICT) sector. Drawing from previous research in constructing the hypotheses, it is examined how companies report about their quantitative environmental targets for products, and what topical areas are in focus for their environmentally conscious practices related to products' reuse. Then, relationships with these published quantitative targets and environmental performance are assessed. Content analysis method is used to derive data from 43 sustainability reports. Our results suggest that being mature enough to publish quantitative environmental targets for products is positively associated with lifecycle thinking, considering the durability of products, and remanufacture. This exploratory study reveals among others, that although published, quantitative environmental targets for products are not yet dominantly present; they are positively associated with environmental performance measures. This includes capability to report quantitatively on flows of reclaimed products, and positions in external ranking. But, we also highlight the need for more discussion around reuse alternatives that are not commonly published among companies in this sample. The paper concludes by discussing the applicability of this research method.

This paper explores the contribution that user behaviour could make to the creation of new energy efficient products. It does this by first looking at the energy demand of 6 households then discusses the identification of the products with the highest potential for improvement. This is then narrowed down to products with a high energy impact and those where a high level of human interaction and use is also evident. A model for guiding design changes based on a theoretical minimum energy level for each product is presented. The paper ends with a behaviour based design assessment procedure based on the results of the 6 household study.

This paper presents a semi-automated state of the art related to the concept of circular economy and focuses on technical problems identification methods based on syntactic dependency patterns, for ameliorating supervised state of the art and patent intelligence. The data and information used in this paper were collected from patents and scientific publications dataset. Through parsing the patent text, very precise lists of recycling materials are automatically extracted without the user being an expert in the problems of the sector. An exemplary case dealing with circular economy is proposed, stressing what types of business areas are nowadays related the most from the materials that are being recycled. This paper contains the results of this analysis and the related comments.

Testing the relationship between economic performance and energy consumption is of utmost importance in nearly all countries. Taking the European Union as scope, this paper analyses the impacts of energy efficiency legislation on a selection of household appliances. In particular, it analyses the employment and value added impacts of the stricter energy efficiency requirements for dishwashers, washing machines, and washer dryers. To do so, this paper combines a bottom-up stock model with a macro-econometric dynamic general equilibrium model (FIDELIO) to quantify the direct and indirect value added and employment impacts in the European Union. The analysis shows that stricter energy efficiency requirements on household dishwashers, washing machines, and washer dryers have a net negative macroeconomic impact on value added (roughly 0.01 % of the total European Union value added) and a slightly net positive impact on employment. In fact, the regulations cause a shift in the composition of the household consumption basket that seems to favor labor-intensive industries.

This paper is prepared based on the invited session speech (of the track Production and Operations Management) on the same topic. The objective of this paper or presentation is to outline recent development in Production and Operations Management. Green process and product design is chosen as the core theme. Some illustrative cases conducted by the author, including reverse logistics, eco-design, and so on, are employed to demonstrate how green process and product design can be done in practice. Life-cycle assessment plays a special role in these cases.

Green New Product Development (GNPD) is very important due to environmental issues increasing. GNPD is defined as creating, designing and develop ecological product which could help in protecting the environment. Small and medium enterprise (SME) firms is one of the contributor to the environmental issues but they could not afford to implement GNPD because there are several obstacles which prevent the successful of GNPD implementation. The objective of this paper are to identify the critical success factors and to determine the obstacles of GNPD implementation among SMEs. The method used in this study is conceptual review of previous literature in green and NPD area of research. The result finding of this paper consist of 9 critical success factors and 12 obstacles. All the critical success factors and obstacles will be grouped. The finding of this study could be a source and fundamental guideline for future study in developing framework for GNPD implementation especially for manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia. Besides that, the result of this study could help organization especially SMEs’s owner and manager in assessing their initiative to implement GNPD in organization.

The paper aims to present the main tendencies on the global and European natural polymer markets in recent years from the point of view of the requirements and achievements of the European Commission that have been expressed in recent programs and Strategies, with special reference to the Circular Economy New Action Plan and the European Green Deal—the EU Strategies for Climate Neutrality. Natural polymers play an important role among biodegradable products whose role in the production and international trade has been systematically increasing, especially since the middle of the last decade of the new century (2015). Natural polymers are also recommended by the EU from the point of view of their specific importance in the group of biodegradable products.

This paper considers a specific aspect of sustainable consumption: product obsolescence in the consumer electronics sector. While economic and policy aspects are critical to a coordinated approach to sustainable consumption, this research focuses upon the contribution that industrial or product design can make to the longevity of consumer electronic goods. This issue is of rising importance, both in industrializing and industrialized nations where the rate of consumption and generated volumes of e-waste have grown dramatically in recent years. Recycling continues to be a priority in many countries that deal with e-waste. Likewise, industrial or product ‘design for the environment’ practices are mostly predicated upon eco-efficiency strategies to minimise environmental impacts. Such strategies often fail to address the behavioural and cultural aspects of consumption, which can result in rebounds - where material flows in the economy swell, leading to increased impacts. It is claimed that as much as 80% of all product-related environmental impacts are determined during the product design phase. This research investigates existing examples and conditions that can contribute to product longevity and the potential for product design to tackle obsolescence in the consumer electronic goods sector. A series of product design solutions and strategies are reviewed in this paper, including: piggybacking new technology, designing-out aesthetic deterioration, modularity and design for upgradeability, product reassignment, product DNA metadata, design quality and secondary markets., 6th Asia Pacific Roundtable for Sustainable Consumption and Production (APRSCP); Melbourne, Australia

This paper critiques current eco-design approaches that focus on eco-efficiency strategies. It attempts to demonstrate how such strategies fail to address emergent issues of sustainability, in particular unsustainable consumption, by ignoring the relationship between micro and macro socioeconomic factors. The paper explores product obsolescence, eco-efficiency and rebound effects - where demand overrides efficiency and emergent design practice for sustainable consumption. Three interrelated questions are considered: 1. Why is sustainable consumption of such importance to the design and production of manufactured goods? 2. Why do current eco-design initiatives fail, or do not go far enough in addressing central issues of sustainability - in particular the emergent issue of unsustainable consumption? 3. Which design methodologies and practices offer a means of addressing sustainable consumption? The methodology for this research includes: surveys of relevant literature in the field of sustainable consumption, qualitative interviews with UK-based design and sustainability professionals, and a comparison of emerging and progressive models for sustainable product design., FutureGround International Conference of the Design Research Society; Melbourne, Australia

Dada la creciente demanda mundial de calzado, su ciclo de vida cada vez más corto, los miles de millones de pares de zapatos vendidos y los impactos ambientales negativos en la cadena de suministro del calzado, este documento explora el impacto ambiental negativo en las etapas del ciclo de vida del calzado de vestir de cuero. y propuestas para reducirlas, tomando como ejemplo el proceso de fabricación artesanal de zapatos de vestir de mujer en piel en pequeñas empresas colombianas. Para el análisis cualitativo del ciclo de vida se utilizó la matriz MET (material, energía, toxicidad) junto con información de entrevistas no estructuradas y de la observación del proceso de producción. Las acciones de reducción de impactos ambientales se procesaron mediante una búsqueda de información sistematizada. Los resultados muestran que las etapas de producción y final de vida tienen los mayores impactos, y los actores de la cadena de suministro deben integrarse para gestionar eficazmente los materiales. Además, se presentaron propuestas para reducir los impactos ambientales negativos como una forma de mejorar el desempeño ambiental. Given the growing global demand for footwear, its increasingly shorter life cycle, the billions of pairs of shoes sold and the negative environmental impacts in the shoe supply chain, this paper explores the negative environmental impact in the stages of the life cycle of leather dress footwear and proposals to reduce them, taking the process of manufacturing handmade women’s leather dress shoes in small Colombian companies as an example. The MET (material, energy, toxicity) matrix was used for the qualitative life cycle analysis along with information from unstructured interviews and from observing the production process. The actions to reduce environmental impacts were processed via a systematized information search. The results show that production and end of life stages have the greatest impacts, and actors in the supply chain must be integrated to effectively manage the materials. Furthermore, proposals to reduce negative environmental impacts were presented as a way to improve environmental performance

The paper describes the results of a specific LCA based analysis of the production of olive oil in the region of Calabria, in southern Italy. The goal of the study is to assess the energy and environmental impacts of different scenarios involving conventional and organic cultivations, plains and hills cultivations and involving different operating techniques. The study also aims at assessing the share of each life cycle step on the total of energy and environmental impacts. The functional unit chosen for the comparative analysis is a glass bottle of 0.75 L of extra virgin olive oil. A “from cradle to gate” perspective was chosen. The analysis was developed according to the LCA standards of the ISO 14040 series. The analysis is based on a field analysis developed in the last years in the province of Reggio Calabria between more than 50 enterprises and stakeholders of the field, representative of the whole Calabria region and of most southern Italy. The data used for the development of mass and energy balances are related to the years 2013–2015. The results clarify that for all indicators that the first part of the life cycle – from the production, including the growth of the olive plant to the full production stage – is the most relevant, variable between 80.6% share in the case of the particulate matter indicator to the 99.64% in the case of land use (Hill – Biological agriculture scenario). Relevant differences can be also traced for each specific indicator among all scenarios; high impacts are traced for the agricultural stages among all scenarios (70% −90% in all indicators) with high impacts caused by fertilizers. Among the transformation stages the bottle production is one of the most relevant sources of life cycle energy uses and environmental impacts (80–90%).

The paper presents the new model for eco-design of fixtures based on life cycle and cost assessment. Four fixture types with different mechanical and physical properties as well as different manufacturing costs have been evaluated. The life cycle results show that the environmental impact is closely related to the mass of steel needed for fixture manufacture. On the other hand, the fixture with the largest environmental impact had the smallest total fixture cost and vice versa. The results show that it is possible to implement environmental and cost analysis in fixture design process and to enable comparative analysis of fixture constructions by three standpoints, technical, environmental and economic.

Mobile health (mHealth) innovations are considered by governments as game changers toward more sustainable health systems. The existing literature focuses on the clinical aspects of mHealth but lacks an integrated framework on its sustainability. The foundational idea for this paper is to include disciplinary complementarities into a multi-dimensional vision to evaluate the non-clinical aspects of mHealth innovations. We performed a targeted literature review to find how the sustainability of mHealth innovations was appraised in each discipline. We found that each discipline considers a different outcome of interest and adopts different time horizons and perspectives for the evaluation. This article reflects on how the sustainability of mHealth innovation can be assessed at both the level of the device itself as well as the level of the health system. We identify some of the challenges ahead of researchers working on mobile health innovations in contributing to shaping a more sustainable health system.

This paper investigates the role of design in making firms eco-innovate. Going beyond the ‘packed’ approach of environmental studies about ‘eco-design’, we maintain that the eco-innovative impact of design is correlated with the firm’s decision to invest in it. In turn, design investment is assumed connected with the use firms make of design. By pooling the Eurobarometer 2015 and 2016 surveys, we test for these arguments with respect to a sample of nearly 4500 European and non-European (US and Switzerland) manufacturing firms. Results confirm that the firms’ capacity of eco-innovating increases when they invest in design, also by making this investment dependent on the role of design within the firm. The relationship between eco-innovation and design appears robust with respect to the different kinds of ‘eco-innovators’ that the Eurobarometer enables us to consider, while some interesting variability emerges when splitting the sample by group of countries and industries.

This paper describes a future-oriented approach for the valorization of polyethylene-based multilayer films. The method involves going from eco-design to mechanical recycling of multilayer films via forced assembly coextrusion. The originality of this study consists in limiting the number of constituents, reducing/controlling the thickness of the layers and avoiding the use of tie layers. The ultimate goal is to improve the manufacturing of new products from recycled multilayer materials by simplifying their recyclability. Within this framework, new structures were developed with two polymer systems: polyethylene/polypropylene and polyethylene/polystyrene, with nominal micro- and nanometric thicknesses. Hitherto, the effect of the multi-micro/nanolayer architecture as well as initial morphological and mechanical properties was evaluated. Several recycling processes were investigated, including steps such as: (i) grinding, (ii) monolayer cast film extrusion, or (iii) injection molding with or without an intermediate blending step by twin-screw extrusion. Subsequently, the induced morphological and mechanical properties were investigated depending on the recycling systems and the relationships between the chosen recycling processes or strategies, and structure and property control of the recycled systems was established accordingly. Based on the results obtained, a proof of concept was demonstrated with the eco-design of multi-micro/nanolayer films as a very promising solution for the industrial issues that arise with the valorization of recycled materials.

The paper presents an innovative lightweight design solution for the rear crash management system of a C-class car, developed within the AffordabLe LIghtweight Automobiles AlliaNCE (ALLIANCE) EU research project. The innovation provides that the reference version of the module, based on conventional steel components, is revolutionized through the introduction of extruded 6000/7000 series aluminum alloys. The two competing alternatives are described and compared in relation to design and technological solutions, including also a sustainability analysis which assesses the entire Life Cycle (LC) of the system on the basis of a wide range of environmental indicators. The lightweight solution allows achieving a large mass reduction (almost 40%), while providing improvements in terms of strength, production efficiency and design freedom. On the other hand, the introduction of new materials and manufacturing technologies entails contrasting sustainability effects depending on impact category, thus not allowing to affirm that the novel alternative is unequivocally preferable under the environmental point of view. However, the comprehensive evaluation of all sustainability aspects through a multi-criteria decision analysis (TOPSIS method) reveals that the environmental profile of the innovative design is slightly preferable with respect to the conventional one.

The aim of this article is to demonstrate using the LCA methodology the environmental effects of material composition changes on Volkswagen Golf passenger cars over the past 30 years. The simplified LCA model of the engine presented in the work shows the energy consumption and total CO2 emissions based on the mass of materials. It was built to investigate general assumptions about material production and car recycling. The results of the research presented in the paper give an image of the modernity of a passenger car engine on the basis of consumption and the degree of recovery of materials used for its construction.

This paper provides a quantitative evaluation of how much the application of the main TRIZ (Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) strategies resulted in an increase of the sustainability of different devices by reducing their environmental impacts. The used dataset consists of 144 case studies of Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) extracted from 119 scientific articles. They were manually analysed and classified by analogy according to the TRIZ strategies. These latter deal with “Dematerialization of the device” through an increased involvement of fields, “Better exploitation of the resources” available in the system or the working environment, “Structure re-design” for eliminating the conflicting parts and properties, “Increasing the control” of the device during the functioning. While the considered environmental impact categories are: global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, particulate matter formation, fossil resources consumption and water consumption. The study identified promising results in all the TRIZ strategies for almost all the environmental impact categories, with percentage reductions on average between 20 and 50%. Compared to previous studies in the literature, these obtained results provide more rigorous, consistent, and broad quantitative evidence about the validity of the individual TRIZ strategies in eco-design. At the same time, some common mechanisms of application of the TRIZ strategies were identified both when they provided the greatest and least environmental benefits. They enriched the discussion of the results, highlighting the many factors that are involved in evaluation, both about the device and external (e.g. electricity mix) and demonstrating that TRIZ’s success in eco-design is not a foregone conclusion, despite the many positive opinions in the literature. The results and their discussion provide data history for the designer wishing to use TRIZ in eco-design.

Concrete is the most widely used construction material, however, concrete structures often suffer from poor durability and require frequent inspections and repairs. Concrete production is also associated with high carbon emissions and the large-scale depletion of natural resources. Recently, the addition of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) in cementitious materials has shown a potential to improve the performance and instigate additional functionalities. However, there is limited understanding around the environmental effects from the production of GNP and its incorporation in concrete. This study has investigated, by means of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), the environmental impact of concrete reinforced with graphene nanoplatelets by focusing on the “cradle-to-gate” of GNP production and their incorporation in concrete. The production of 1 kg of G2NanPaste (GNPs product) is found to result in 0.17 kgCO2 equivalent units which is lower than Portland cement (0.86 kgCO2 eq). Ordinary Portland cement (CEM I) is 248 times more damaging than G2NanPaste in terms of global warming. The superplasticiser addition is found to have a greater environmental impact compared to G2NanPaste. The sensitivity analysis showed that if the addition of GNPs results in a 5% reduction of the Portland cement, the effect of the concrete mix on global warming can be reduced by 21%. This indicates that GNPs could be environmentally friendly if used as a supplement for some of the cement. The main aim of this paper is to perform the first LCA of the addition of graphene nanoplatelets in concrete. It is hoped that this work will pave the way for further research in this area.

With the rapid change of consumer trends and the evolution of technology, users are losing the emotional attachment they used to have with their belongings. At an increasing rate, people replace their products, even if still fully functional. The idea of throwaway consumption is now spreading to “hard” consumer goods: computers and electronic apparatus, leisure equipment, domestic appliances, etc. and this is having disastrous effects on the environment. How can this make sense in the perspective of sustainable development? This paper de- scribes the Metamorphosis approach: a strategy based on the idea that objects could change and evolve through time, thus promoting stronger emotional ties with their owners who would be less inclined to throw them away. A number of experiments were conducted, showing that Rapid Prototyping technology can be used to transform and modify products. The first phase of this project focused on giving new life to products that are usually dis- carded. In the second phase, the research team designed objects from scratch – a number of lamps – while anticipating a second life from the initial stages of the design process. The various projects are described and show the potential of the Metamorphosis strategy as a new tool for sustainable design.

Part 4: TRIZ Applications in Eco Design; International audience; Understanding the impact of inventive solutions on consumers’ value perception is essential to develop successful products. This applies particularly to sustainable solutions, which need to penetrate the market to pursue environmental objectives. This paper explores the value perception of three categories of TRIZ-oriented sustainable solutions, namely designs that have undergone dynamization, change of the physical state or the field exploited. Through an experimental study with 43 participants, supported by a specific questionnaire and biometric measures (eye tracking, skin conductance), self-assessments and unconscious behavioral aspects were gathered while a series of 18 product pictures was shown. Out of them, 9 products implement one of the above TRIZ-oriented principles and 9 constitute same-category products with a higher environmental impact. The results show that the different categories of TRIZ solutions give rise to diverse nuances of value perception. This outcome triggers further considerations concerning the ease of interpreting design modifications steered by TRIZ concepts and heuristics.

International audience; Immortal products are updated and upgraded to go from application to application and, in so doing, to extend their life as long as possible. Designing such products is the key to a sustainable society from the circular economy perspective. It is a new way of designing that must be supported by engineering tools to be deployed in companies, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) included. The implementation of circular loops and the associated industrial systems are very dependent on the contexts and life scenarios of the products. Thus, depending on the products to be re-circulated, the processes controlled, and the actors involved, the requirements to be reported at design level are very diverse. This paper proposes a new design method based on lifecycle scenarios to be analyzed and designed. Supported by classical engineering tools that has been adapted for circular economy (CE) context, the lifecycle model enables simultaneous design of businesses, products and services and the evaluation of their environmental values. Three industrial design cases showing the application of engineering tools for implementation of CE lifecycle scenarios are presented.

International audience; Eco-innovation methodologies and tools are being applied in companies to an increasing extent. None of them, however, are particularly adapted to complex systems industries, where the eco-design requirements are highly specific. These systems are characterized by large size and mass, and relatively long and uncertain life cycles. The associated organization is also complex as there are multiple highly specialized experts, who rarely collaborate, and much less so on environmental aspects. In this paper, an adapted eco-innovation process based on the eco-design strategy wheel is proposed for use with a working group of internal technical experts. A first phase involves generating a high number of potential eco-innovative R&D projects that are then analyzed and assessed using an appropriate multi-criteria grid. Three structured filters enable an informed selection of the most promising projects that will then make up a balanced R&D project portfolio. The whole process has been successfully applied at Alstom Grid on large electrical stations used in the primary aluminium industry.

One of the most important criteria to remain competitive in the marketplace is a suitable product design that satisfy requirements of a diverse range of stakeholders. But, ambiguous, different and general description of customer needs, major technological advance and significant change from traditional requirements (cost, performance etc.) to new requirements such as, economic, environmental, ecological and societal consideration make the design process more complicate. It should be noticed too, while the new requirements have a major effect on the product successfully, the traditional requirement should not be forgotten by designers. Unfortunately, new issues sometimes are deeply coupled with traditional functions, so the current design methodologies are not able to consider them in the product design process. In this regard, the development of new design methods and tools that facilitate design process by consideration new requirements is vital. The Axiomatic Design (AD) approach is one of the most promising design methodology in the field of conceptual design. This method is emerging as a superior method of design, particularly when innovation versus incremental design is needed. This paper focuses on setting up the redesign of the Beech Baron 58 tail, by using AD method that integrate with Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Eco-Design concepts.

International audience; Despite companies progressively taking sustainable performance into account through various governmental incentives and policies, most still have their own strategic, tactical or operational targets based essentially on economic criteria (turnover, productivity, inventory valuation...). Since the 2000s, the scientific community has been more particularly interested in sustainable operations management, but little research addresses the three dimensions together: economic, social and environmental. Although product and production system maintenance has a significant impact on economic, environmental and social performance, and therefore sustainability, it is no exception. In this paper, we investigate research in the field of maintenance decision support to highlight the gaps we consider to be among the causes of the partial control of sustainable performance in this domain. We then show that some solutions could take inspiration from prognostic and health management, as well as eco-design practices. This investigation led us to establish lines of research for the control of sustainable performance in maintenance.

This paper mainly aims at investigating the governments&rsquo, take-back policy of penalty or subsidy that motivates eco-design or remanufacturing. For this purpose, we consider a two-stage Stackelberg game between a government and a manufacturer. The government first decides to impose a take-back penalty or offer a take-back subsidy, and then the manufacturer selects to remanufacture or invest in eco-design as a response to the take-back policy. Upon analyzing and comparing game equilibrium, we find that the government prefers to offer a subsidy policy for eco-design and to impose a penalty policy for remanufacturing. The manufacturer will decide on investing in eco-design when the monetary value of the environmental impact of landfill and eco-design coefficient is medium. However, if the eco-design coefficient is high, the manufacturer practices remanufacturing instead of eco-design whether penalized and subsidized. The present study provides a set of guidelines in practical managerial recommendations for governments and manufacturers.

Sustainable Manufacturing and operations has become a crucial issue in present scenario for the manufacturing firms. Today manufacturing firms are keen interested to become sustainable in all three aspect economical social and environmental. There are number of manufacturing practices viz. Eco-design, process design, green supply chain, lean practices, product recovery and cleaner production by which firms should achieve sustainability. This paper present an AHP model of manufacturing sustainability through different manufacturing practices. In the initial stage of this study a survey methodology used from academia and industry after that an AHP model developed. From this study it is identified that firm EP-3 more conscious towards sustainability with respect to other firm. It is suggested that every electrical panel industry should adopt sustainable manufacturing practices to achieving competiveness in the market.

The optimal eco-efficient design of production processes guarantees sustainable and resource-efficient manufacturing systems. Within the scope of the European project “DAPhNE”, Fraunhofer IPA enables eco-efficient design with a new integrated system for the simulation and management of energy-intensive production systems as well as related key performance indicators (KPIs). The approach presented in this paper is based on a holistic production model and simulation system including dynamic KPIs with the focus on environmental, operational and economic aspects. A main objective of the developed system is to support the engineering and optimization phases to develop and maintain eco-efficient production systems.

This paper addresses the need for a structured approach to environmental assessment and improvement. We propose a computer-aided methodology, named Eco-OptiCAD, based on the integration of Structural Optimization and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools. Eco-OptiCAD supports the designer during product development, highlighting when and where the core of the environmental impact lies. Furthermore, it provides effective tools to address such impacts, improving the original product, while ensuring structural and functional requirements. It foresees the synergic use of (1) virtual prototyping tools, such as 3D CAD, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Structural optimization, (2) function modeling methodology and (3) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools. The kernel of the methodology is constituted by a set of optimization strategies and a module, named Life Cycle Mapping (LCM). In particular, we have conceived ten optimization strategies converting environmental objectives and constraints into structural and geometrical parameters. They enable the designer to generate alternative green scenarios according to the triad shape-material-production. The LCM tool has been specifically developed to easily trace the growth of environmental impacts throughout the product's life cycle and allow the user to focus his effort on the most relevant aspects. Thanks to the integration of the structural optimizer with an LCA map, the designer becomes aware of the consequences that each change in the geometry, the material or the manufacturing process will produce on the environmental impact of the product throughout its life cycle. With a complete view of the product life cycle, the designer can improve a single phase, while retaining a global perspective; thus avoiding the possibility of gaining a local green improvement at the cost of a global increase in environmental impacts. An exemplary case study is presented to detail each step of the design methodology and shows its potential. Eco-OptiCAD represents a first step toward a fully integrated system for eco-design assessment and improvement, with the potential of working side by side with common design tools, in providing a constant environmental feedback.

Designing environmentally friendly products has become a tighter requirement in the marketplace because of both the increasing trend in awareness of consumers and the obligations from legislation requirements. Unfortunately, this is not a straight forward decision for designers to evaluate whether their design options are satisfactory in terms of balancing various factors (for examples, different forms of environmental assessment) or not. This is partly attributed to the fact that there is no universally accepted approach for conducting such analysis. In this connection, this research makes reference to a European Union (EU) directive as a reference model and makes use of Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP), which is a useful tool to help designers to make decision, for evaluating eco-design options. The AHP model is developed based on two case studies on consumer electronic products. Pairwise comparisons, one of the key steps in AHP, are conducted with the expertise gained from the case studies and the help from the software package Expert Choice. The paper also reveals how design options can be evaluated, or be screened out. The proposed method does not require the designers to conduct detailed analysis (life-cycle assessment for example) for every new product options and hence can save their time. This is particularly important when they are facing shorter and shorter product life cycle nowadays. First published online:18 Jun 2014

The Eco-design approach for new product development is becoming progressively more and more important for competitive and legislative reasons, especially in advanced markets (EU USA, East Asia, etc.). Its importance is increasingly growing since the decisions made in early design stages largely affect not only the cost but also the environmental impact of a product. This paper introduces a novel approach that could be used to increase the potential capability of an Eco-design approach. This aim is achieved through a better fit between the critical environmental issues and the development of new solutions using AD. The introduced approach, first, considers a meta-product point of view that uses a customized Smart Eco-design Platform and the Axiomatic Design (AD) for the improvement of the eco-sustainability of products. Then, the approach introduces the meta-system level as the reference level for detecting the system Design Matrix and developing an uncoupled design. This goal could be achieved through the use of AD and the implementation of the environmental information as a tool to reduce the space of the available design solutions. The first axiom aims to define the Design Matrix of the Functional System in order to detect its best configuration. The purpose is to avoid an optimization without appropriate knowledge in terms of interaction among meta-product and resources. Then, the Functional Requirements definition, used in AD, could represent the ideal index for the ease of sharing information and knowledge on a wide scale among different industrial sectors. The development of the Smart Eco-design Platform could encourage the use of this approach in real product development. The sharing of the database enables obtaining information for reducing the field of design parameters that satisfy the Functional Requirements. In this way, it could be possible to develop a system of products with an overall higher level of eco-sustainability and a better use of resources through information derived from other fields and experiences. Typical goals that are reachable are, for instance, represented by a system that needs less consumption of energy and material during the whole product life cycle.

Having environmental indications such as those provided by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), while designing a product would reduce the time required by the trial-and-error approach resulting from environmental checks only at the end of the process, directing the development towards more sustainable solutions from the beginning. To achieve this, the design and environmental analysis should be more integrated, as well as the respective tools. The project idea discussed in this paper aims to overcome this barrier by defining an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) structure designed to carry Life Cycle Inventory data from Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools to Life Cycle Assessment tool. The idea is to exploit overlapping data between the CAD system and LCA instruments, which are currently not being considered. This process will contribute to the reduction of time required for data input and the amount of mistakes. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.

International audience; Lots of eco-designed projects were carried out successfully, and eco-designed products are now on the market. However, it is very difficult for designers and engineers to compare their design projects to those already done and consequently to reuse the knowledge gained. In a more general perspective, a method to take advantage of previous experiences in eco-design is needed. This paper is a contribution to develop a standard for eco-design practices and proposes a framework to characterise both eco-design projects and eco-tools. Forty case studies from the literature were exploited to extract criteria and options to define the framework. The proposed usage-oriented classification of eco-tools, associated with the practical analysis frame of the design projects, was implemented and finally robust enough to characterise 40 projects.

The concept of evolution trends comes from the idea that all technical systems follow the same patterns of evolution, thus making it possible to anticipate the technological jumps enabling an inventive problem to be solved. The problem nowadays is that evolution horizons have turned to the need for more ecological products. Hence, the question to be answered is that of how evolution lines are affected by this objective change. In order to analyse this question, the authors selected the LiDS-wheel tool, which was developed for classifying and managing the different strategies that can be used in eco-design. The aim of the present work is to compare the evolution trends of TRIZ with the eco-design strategies presented by LiDS in order to analyse the effects on the environmental parameters when the evolution trends advance in a design. The paper discusses the usefulness of the current evolution lines used for eco-design.

While packaging clearly contributes to sustainability by limiting food waste and product loss, it still requires the use of natural resources and has a direct impact on the environment. Therefore, it is important to think how the packaging should be designed to fulfill its main functions in the most sustainable way possible. In addition to environmental perspective, also social and economic impacts should be considered. Eco-design approach, based on product and packaging life cycle thinking, is in the key role. The actors at the end of the value chain (brand owners, retailers, consumers) have the most power in making packaging chain more sustainable. While increasing number of consumers is willing to incorporate environmental considerations into purchasing decisions, more sustainable packaging solutions and better communication and education are still required. When using sustainability as a marketing attribute, the origin has to be in the real corporate responsibility instead of green washing. Active collaboration throughout the packaging value chain (from material developers and manufacturers to packaging suppliers, brand owners, retailers, consumers and recyclers) and government is vital for driving the sustainability and creating continuously new innovative solutions. In order to produce added value for every actor in the chain, an information-intensive, co-operation based value creation model should be exploited. This paper will discuss the drivers, importance of the collaboration along the value chain and possible technological means towards sustainable packaging. Challenges and opportunities faced when aiming at truly sustainable consumer packaging are highlighted throughout the paper.

International audience; In the era of climate change and energetic transition, industrial players are driven to adapt their activities. Eco-design has emerged as a major approach to enhance the environmental performance of products as well as services. Yet it still needs to be developed for complex issues such as neighborhood development and urban planning. This is the very objective of the academic Chair on the Eco-design of building sets and infrastructure that was established in 2008 by Paris-Tech and Vinci, the well-known leading group in construction and infrastructure operations. The chair involves three schools with different specializations within ParisTech: " Mines " deal with en-ergetics, " Agro " with biodiversity and urban agriculture and " Ecole des Ponts " (ENPC) with transportation and urban development. The paper presents a one semester full-time specialization training for master students launched in 2014 at Ecole des Ponts. The curriculum, targeted to the " eco-design of sustainable cities " , is in two main parts: on the first hand, four specialist courses deal with spatial design, evaluation, urban modeling and big data, respectively; on the other hand, an intensive group project targeted to eco-design a sustainable neighborhood. The paper presents first the context of engineering education in France and its orientation towards sustainable development of cities, then the principles of the education program; next, details are provided about the specialist course in evaluation, which is based on Life Cycle Assessment, then on the intensive group project and the topics it addresses in years 2014-2015 and 2015-2016. Lastly some lessons and perspectives are drawn.

The environmental impacts caused by the current production and consumption models, together with the impact that the current economic crisis, bring necessary changes in the European industry toward new business models based on sustainability issues that could allow them to innovate and improve their competitiveness. This paper analyzes the key environmental issues and the current and future market trends in one of the most important industrial sectors in Spain, the furniture sector. It also proposes new decision support tools -diagnostic kit, roadmap and guidelines- to guide companies to implement sustainability criteria into their organizations, including eco-design strategies and other economical and social strategies in accordance with the sustainability definition, and other available tools such as eco-labels, environmental management systems, etc., and to use and combine them to obtain the results the company expects to help improve its competitiveness., {"references":["F. 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The use of magnesium and its alloys is limited by their high susceptibility to corrosion, that may be attributed to the presence of critical impurities and the high chemical reactivity of the magnesium itself. Such characteristic justifies the great interest of performing coating technologies for the protection of magnesium parts by using environmentally friendly and cheap processes, with particular relevance in the framework of the European context. While magnesium technologies are rapidly taking advantages of the research results obtained during the last years, some more efforts are necessary to evaluate the impacts of its production on the environment and on the use of existing energy resources. Following this main lines, the paper presents some results obtained in NANOMAG (“Development of Innovative Nanocomposite Coatings for Magnesium Casting Protection” – Growth Programme n. 40548), a research project sponsored by the European Commission in which magnesium and its coating processes are evaluated taking into account also their environmental performances with a life-cycle approach.

The delivery of manufactured goods may be specified as a function of four independent factors. In addition to the conventionally considered invested capital I and contributed labour L, know-how and technology K has been recently recognised as an important independent input to the economic system, while tangible resources T may be introduced to provide an accounting of material and energy depletion. In this paper, sets of technology-driven developments are considered based on these four independent factors while setting aside economic, social, legal and political considerations. Eco-consistency concepts are reviewed followed by a discussion of the basic green-engineering approach to eco-design. These discussions lead to more specific issues including a focus on the clear accounting of the consumption of tangible resources. Also considered is the trade-off between sustainability costs and technology benefits to manage production and enterprise growth aiming both at ecological safety and economical return. The conclusions address development strategies that will be important in the foreseeable future. An extensive reference list has been provided for this interdisciplinary field.

With the increasing awareness of sustainability, eco-design has been an important trend in the fashion industry. Many fashion brands such as Nike, Adidas, and The North Face have developed sustainable fashion by incorporating eco-design elements. Eco-design is an important part of sustainable supply chains. In this paper, we conducted a product line analysis of eco-designed products from a famous outdoor sportswear brand, Patagonia. We collected Patagonia’s 2017 Spring Season product line data and analyzed the data through descriptive analysis, factor analysis and correlation analysis. We found that Patagonia mainly uses organic, recycled, and traceable materials in their eco-product line development. We identified that the usage of eco-materials may significantly affect the number of color choices and product weight as well as gender difference, pattern design, product fit and online reviewers’ opinions at Patagonia. We argued that Patagonia should focus on functionality more than aesthetics in eco-design. We discussed how sustainable fashion firms should manage eco-design in the supply chain.

Most common eco-design methods for SMEs often provide guidelines and suggestions too general, if not contradictories, to be considered as a real design practice. This paper presents a method, named “iTree”, based on a set of eco-design guidelines specifically conceived to support designers in developing new greener products in accordance with the output of a product Life Cycle Assessment-LCA. The “iTree” guidelines are particularly suitable for SME – Small and Medium Enterprises, because they do not specifically require eco-design or problem solving experts. They have been conceived to provide clear and detailed suggestions on where and how to intervene and are based on problem solving methods, such as TRIZ, design for disassembly, and other computer aided tools, adapted for eco-design purposes and simplified for non-expert users. “iTree” method provides the user with an easy and graphical way to visualize the life cycle inventory and critical areas of intervention. For each area, it suggests only the pertinent set of guidelines, customized to the specific situation. In this way, there is a direct link between the visual outcomes of the Eco-assessment phase and the Eco-improvement phase. The experimentation of the proposed method and guidelines is described with an explanatory example. Furthermore, the method has been tested within the European project, named Remake, which aimed at testing new methods of eco-improvement for SMEs in Europe.

International audience; There are methods and technologies developed for generation and evaluation of product proposals for better environmental efficiency throughout the lifecycle. But in use phase these are not effective due to complexity of user behaviours and usage scenarios. Literature review reviled the need to develop products with the help of user to achieve sustainability. An outline of a conceptual system to include user in design is proposed in this paper consisting of different dimensions based on the interactions and influences. It is important to consider how and where the user uses the product in reality while designing by including user also in design process. When different elements like people, product and environment come together, their individual characteristics, context in which they operate determine the interactions and influences among them. The questions need to be answered are identified to develop the proposed system.

Customer feedback is used to understand customer requirements. Early design phases require the consideration of items including manufacturing, the environment, and sustainability management. Therefore, it is crucial that eco-efficiency is taken into account in the early design phases. Traditionally, eco-efficiency is considered only in terms of eco-design issues, not customer requirements based on business values such as Recency, Frequency, and Monetary (RFM) value. In the meantime, integrating innovation from eco-design is one important aspect. Here, I propose that customer feedback-based eco-efficiency and TRIZ-based innovation can be considered in early eco-design based on the RFM value for sustainability management. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy-based AHP were integrated to explore the relative weights of RFM variables for business value evaluation. The innovative method of the paper is using a TRIZ contradiction matrix associated with engineering parameters for eco-design. The experimental study has been carried out, and it meets the forecasting business value for green product usage. The business value was used as the decision-making factor in order to evaluate both environmental and marketing performance.

International audience; The paper presents an eco-design methodology, dedicated to semi-conductor components manufacturers. This method aims to increase the designers' environmental consciousness and drive them systematically to explore innovative opportunities that can positively impact the environment during the early stages of design phase. The method relies on an original LCA-based tool for the environmental analysis of integrated circuits. It is developed in collaboration with a pilot team so as to help them develop and integrate their own eco-design approach. It allows the designers to acquire basic environmental knowledge and know-how during the analysis phase while ensuring high environmental performances of the microchips. The tool is organized into three main axes: characterizing design decisions in terms of impacts; controlling the evolution of new generations compared to older ones; and finding leverages for improvement. The environmental evaluation of a technology under development was initially assessed but as it is a preliminary work, the results were not directly used to design or re-design this technology. This pilot experiment gave encouraging results and validated the method capable of arousing the designers' interest on the environmental impact of their activity. The interpretation of the results allowed the design team to establish trends and directions for improvement for the future technologies they will design.