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Buildings are one of the largest contributors to negative environmental impacts because of the high consumption of energy and materials during their life cycle. The present work proposes a framework, able to make available information, both of general materials and specific commercial solutions; moreover, it overcomes the current state of the art, since, although focused on environmental sustainability, provides the opportunity to compare simultaneously several choices, also considering their properties and characteristics. Based on the proposed methodology, a tool structure and workflow are presented. The main potentiality is represented by the possibility of executing sustainability assessment already in the early stages of building design using the proposed tool when design choices significantly contribute to the global environmental impact of solutions. A validation procedure to quantitatively evaluate the main tool's limits and potentialities is proposed.

According to the European energy consumption reports, the highest energy/fuel consumption in the residential sector is due to space heating, followed by water heating. Generally, the product used to warm water in residential buildings is a boiler system where a heat exchanger is the core of the system. The paper provides a Life Cycle Assessment analysis of a traditional heat exchanger used in domestic boilers with the aim to identify critical aspects and environmental hotspots for the development of a novel concept of the heat exchanger. The methodology used to collect eco-design guidelines from the Life Cycle Assessment analysis is proposed within the paper. Several eco-design actions were put into practice to reduce the environmental issues in each phase of the life cycle from the materials used, the manufacturing processes as well as the product geometry to increase energy efficiency during the use. Concerning the materials and manufacturing phase, a novel design based on a different material (e.g., stainless steel) was developed to replace a mix of materials (i.e., copper and aluminum alloy). Concerning the use phase, the overall product efficiency was increased allowing important savings in terms of gas/energy consumption, by the adoption of a novel design (e.g., spiral pipe). The new heat exchanger design shows better environmental performance in each Life Cycle Assessment indicator, saving more than 40% in CO2 emissions (Global Warming Potential) in the whole product life cycle.

In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, human has still a central role. Manufacturing industries have to deal with human sustainability in order to guarantee workers’ health and well-being. Several studies have proved the importance of ergonomics in workplace design and the benefits related to the adoption of the human-centered approach. The enabling technologies of Industry 4.0 are changing the role of the operator and can support him from a physical and cognitive point of view. On the other hand, companies are increasingly implementing lean philosophies, such as World Class Manufacturing, to maintain their competitiveness by reducing wastes and costs. However, the need arises for a comprehensive methodology to support the design of manufacturing equipment considering human factors by integrating Industry 4.0 technologies and World Class Manufacturing elements. It aims at improving both ergonomic and efficiency aspects of the workstation. The proposed methodology allows identifying and in-depth analyzing the problem, thus finding and implementing a solution that complies with all the requirements and constraints defined. Each step of the methodology can be strengthened by Industry 4.0 technologies. The methodology has been experimented in a real case study with a global company of agriculture and industrial vehicles, leading to the design and implementation of a new equipment. Relevant benefits in terms of ergonomics, efficiency, and process standardization have been achieved.

De-manufacturing and re-manufacturing are fundamental technical solutions to efficiently recover value from post-use products. Disassembly in one of the most complex activities in de-manufacturing because i) the more manual it is the higher is its cost, ii) disassembly times are variable due to uncertainty of conditions of products reaching their EoL, and iii) because it is necessary to know which components to disassemble to balance the cost of disassembly. The paper proposes a methodology that finds ways of applications: it can be applied at the design stage to detect space for product design improvements, and it also represents a baseline from organizations approaching de-manufacturing for the first time. The methodology consists of four main steps, in which firstly targets components are identified, according to their environmental impact; secondly their disassembly sequence is qualitatively evaluated, and successively it is quantitatively determined via disassembly times, predicting also the status of the component at their End of Life. The aim of the methodology is reached at the fourth phase when alternative, eco-friendlier End of Life strategies are proposed, verified, and chosen.

The paper presents an interactive methodology partially inspired by Japanese Kaizen concept and applicable in several industrial contexts; its implementation starts when different circumstances arise, e.g. an analysis is carried out and some criticalities emerge. The proposed methodology aims at continuously improving processes under the environmental and economic perspectives. It is made up of eleven steps that leads the group from the issue identification to a new status, improved than the previous one, and improvable than the following. The case study describes an implementation of the methodology in an Italian medium company acting in the clothing sector, demonstrating its validity and efficacy. It was launched in the firm after energetic and environmental analyses outlined material, energy wastes and environmental impacts; they were tackled, and results show the methodology to be successful both from environmental and economic point of view.

Product eco-design includes several methodologies aimed at supporting companies in the development of sustainable products. Currently, this theme is assuming an important role in both the academia and industry worlds due to the increasing attention to environmental problems and the need for a transition toward circular economy business/organizational models. In this context, the present paper focuses on the industrial sector of espresso coffee machines manufacturing which has several unexploited potentialities. The analysis of the sector specificity (internal and external contexts), as well as of the product lifecycle allowed to define an eco-design framework to guide companies involved in the design and production of espresso coffee machines. Effective eco-design strategies should include the combined use of specific methods, tools and metrics to manage all the most important lifecycle phases (beginning of life, middle of life, end of life) during the design activities in order to set preventive actions that avoid future potential environmental impacts. Only in this way, the environmental and economic benefits of the circular economy paradigm (e.g. remanufacturing/reuse of selected components) can be practically exploited in real industrial contexts. The presented case studies confirmed that the application of design for disassembly rules positively contributes to increase the product performances during maintenance and end of life, while a re-design oriented to component modularity could be a key strategy to pursue remanufacturing for boilers, a key and expensive component included in espresso coffee machines.

Flavour stability is a key factor in the beer production process. The stabilizing effect of six commercial phenolic-rich extracts was studied. The extracts were added to beer before bottling. Quality parameters (colour, turbidity, foam and dissolved oxygen content), antioxidant activity by 2,2&prime, Azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH), total polyphenols content, and sensorial analysis by a trained panel were performed over the course of storage. The beers were analyzed every 3 months for a total period of 6 months. Results indicated that all studied phenolic-rich extracts positively affected the beer flavour stability. In particular, the condensed tannins showed a significant protective effect. The condensed green tea tannins resulted as the most promising source of natural antioxidant able to prolong beer shelf-life and bring interesting organoleptic characteristics to beer. Also, grape seed tannins appeared suitable to boost flavour stability and improve organoleptic properties of beer.