Product Design for the Environment: A Life Cycle Approach

In recent years the increased awareness of environmental issues has led to the development of new approaches to product design, known as Design for Environment and Life Cycle Design. Although still considered emerging and in some cases radical, their principles will become, by necessity, the wave of the future in design. A thorough exploration of the subject, Product Design for the Environment: A Life Cycle Approach presents key concepts, basic design frameworks and techniques, and practical applications. It identifies effective methods and tools for product design, stressing the environmental performance of products over their whole life cycle. After introducing the concepts of Sustainable Development, the authors discuss Industrial Ecology and Design for Environment as defined in the literature. They present the life cycle theory and approach, explore how to apply it, and define its main techniques. The book then covers the main premises of product design and development, delineating how to effectively integrate environmental aspects in modern product design. The authors pay particular attention to environmental strategies that can aid the achievement of the requisites of eco-efficiency in various phases of the product life cycle. They go on to explore how these strategies are closely related to the functional performance of the product and its components, and, therefore, to some aspects of conventional engineering design. The book also introduces phenomena of performance deterioration, together with principles of design for component durability, and methods for the assessment of residual life. Finally, the book defines entirely new methods and tools in relation to strategic issues of Life Cycle Design. Each theme provides an introduction to the problems and original proposals based on the authors’ experience. The authors then discuss the implementation of these new concepts in design practice, differentiating between levels of intervention and demonstrating their use and effectiveness in specific case studies. The book not only presents evidence of the potential of the approach and methods proposed, but also analyzes some of the problems involved in developing eco-compatible products in the company context.