ECODESIGN Implementation

A Systematic Guidance on Integrating Environmental Considerations into Product Development
Series: Alliance for Global Sustainability Bookseries, Vol. 6

Wimmer, Wolfgang, Züst, Rainer, Lee, Kun-Mo
Link: http://www.springer.com/engineering/energy+technology/book/978-1-4020-3070-3

About this book

Stakeholders such as environmental directives and customer demands for reducing environmental impacts of a product require innovative and environmentally improved products. Therefore a systematic approach and effective methods and tools are needed in the early phase of product development.
The basic elements for optimized process management in the design department are described in this book.
The book provides twelve easy to follow steps for implementing ECODESIGN in a company. It gives clear advice how to integrate environmental considerations into product design and development, and combines ECODESIGN with Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Communication. Chapters on Product modeling, Life Cycle Assessment, ECODESIGN tasks, Product Improvement and Environmental Communication use the previously developed ECODESIGN PILOT (www.ecodesign.at/pilot) and show its application to a real product example.
The book comes with two web tools: one is the ECODESIGN PILOT, used to find measures to environmentally improve a product within a short time. The other is the ECODESIGN PILOT's Assistant (www.ecodesign.at/assist): an expert system, which helps to find the right improvement strategy for a product.

ECODESIGN Implementation: A systematic guidance on integrating environmental considerations into product development.

Handbook about Life Cycle Assessment (PDF): Best practices of ISO 14040 Series.

Handbook about self-declared environmental claims (PDF): Best practices of ISO 14021.

Handbook about ECODESIGN (PDF): Best practise of ISO/TR 14062.

Implementation

The 12 steps for implementing ECODESIGN in practice taken from the newly published book: ECODESIGN Implementation: A systematic guidance on integrating environmental considerations into product development.

Step	Leading question	Task
1	What product is to be redesigned?	Describing the reference product with environmental parameters.
2	What are the stakeholder requirements? What is expected from the product?	Performing Environmental Quality Function Deployment.
3	What are the strengths and weaknesses compared with the competitors products?	Environmental Benchmarking with the competitors products.
4	What are the significant environmental aspects of the reference product throughout its entire life cycle?	Applying the ECODESIGN PILOTís Assistant orperforming Life Cycle Assessment and interpretation of results.
5	How to combine stakeholders requirements and significant environmental aspects into improvement strategies?	Deriving common ECODESIGN improvement strategies.
6	Which ECODESIGN guidelines should be implemented in the product?	Applying ECODESIGN PILOT's checklists to determine redesign tasks.
7	What are the environmental product specifications to start with?	Starting product improvement.
8	How to modify the functional structure of the product?	Adding new functions to and/or modifying functions of the reference product.
9	How to generate new ideas for the functions of the product?	Performing creativity session and/or searching for patents.
10	How to generate and select the best product concept variants?	Assembling ideas corresponding to each function of the redesigned product concepts and evaluate them against criteria.
11	How does the improved product look like?	Continuing embodiment design and layout, prototyping and testing.
12	How to communicate the environmental improvements of the product to the market?	Performing Environmental Product Declaration or self declared environmental claims.

ECODESIGN Implementation Book Flyer: Download of the printable description and order form

ECODESIGN Implementation Book at Springer Publishing: Alliance for Global Sustainability Bookseries, Vol. 6
Wimmer Wolfgang, Züst Rainer, Lee Kun-Mo;
ISBN: 1-4020-3070-3