Contribution to the characterisation of eco-design projects

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• eco-tools
• eco-design
• design criteria
• classification method
• characterisation method

1. Introduction

The formulation of policies oriented to develop a more responsible production of goods and services has increased in the world (Zwolinski et al. 2007, Boutillier et al. 2008). At present, there is a generous range of policies, oriented strategies and tools to promote and facilitate more responsible production and consumption practices and habits. Within the range of tools can be found, for example methodologies for the adaptation of the eco-design concept in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) such as Design for Sustainability (D4S) (UNEP 2007); or the Life Cycle Management in Business and Industries (UNEP/SETAC 2007) that includes a framework to support the development of sustainable operations in SMEs and also in larger businesses. Moreover, there is panoply of software, methods and directives that engineers and designers can use to consider and manage environmental concerns in the product design and development process.

This panoply highlights an increased worldwide interest that favours sustainable production operations, particularly with benefits in environmental terms. However, the proportion of products that are produced with the consideration to their environmental impact and that shows clear characteristics that improve their environmental performance is still low (Dewulf and Duflou 2004, Zwolinski and Brissaud 2008). At the end of the 1990s, Rocha and Brezet (1999) talked about the lack of successful environmentally conscious products, because almost all of the publicised examples were pilot projects, and when the projects ended, the organisation did not have the capacity to apply the knowledge to the development of other similar products. However, valuable advances especially by corporations implementing eco-design techniques and developing organisational schemes to incorporate the concept of sustainability within their organisations were made. One example is Phillips that introduced the eco-design concept in 1994, developed measurable targets and, in 1998, created the standards to manufacture green products. The complete programme is now in its fourth version (EcoVision4 environmental action programme) with specific goals, to be reached by 2012, to improve energy consumption, reduce packaging, reduce the use of hazardous substances, reduce product weight and improve recycling and lifetime reliability (PHILIPS 2007). A similar programme oriented to introduce and develop a sustainable business strategy and a well-defined business unit around sustainable products is Ecomagination launched by General Electric in 2005 (Lash and Wellington 2007).

Despite such efforts, the most well-known achievements in the development of sustainable products and sustainable business are associated with large organisations (Rainey 2006). Programmes such as D4S and the UNEP/SETAC initiative have shown that small firms need constant encouragement and support to adopt life cycle frameworks and to use eco-design techniques and tools. The cases presented, e.g. in the report D4S (UNEP 2007) show how SMEs in Africa and Central America designed or redesigned some of their products helped by teams from universities, consultancies and specialised agencies in sustainable themes. Without the participation of these external teams, it is not clear how those SMEs could use the techniques and tools proposed in the frameworks. In this sense, our first statement is, engineers and designers need available and attainable standards to make eco-design replicable, especially when they cannot access sophisticated frameworks.

We believe that such standards are provided by the well-established frameworks (UNEP 2007, Herrmann et al. 2007, UNEP/SETAC 2007), but can also come from previous experiences and cases that contribute to the process of adoption for new concepts such as eco-design, sustainable products or eco-friendly processes, especially in small firms and training opportunities for engineers and designers. Firms and individuals outside of supporting programmes need orientation especially when they are seeing the topics related to sustainability for the first time. Previous experiences presented as case studies can help to achieve this orientation: there are many projects and pilot studies reported in the literature and on company websites that show both successful eco-designed products and successful industrial practices. Our second statement is, practice exists but could be better exploited, mainly because comparison is not always possible and affordable especially in small businesses.

Thurston (1999) stated that another problem in the field of environmentally conscious product design and development is that engineers and designers have to deal with concepts and measures out of their area of expertise. This means that they have to manage and analyse information from the results that they do not always understand. That is why it is so important to develop tools that connect environmental information and product design concepts (Waage 2007). Although Baumann et al. (2002) identified about 150 tools in their literature review, most were developed to work at product component level and product structure level and few of them included the product system level (Brezet and Van Hemel 1997). With so many tools on the market, engineers and designers face the problem of choosing the tool that best fits their needs and problems, especially as these tools have been developed to support different activities in the product design and development process. In this paper, we have restricted our consideration to those tools used to manage and include environmental information and concerns in the product design and development process, which we classify for the moment as eco-design tools. Our third and final statement is, managing eco-design tool selection is a key point for the development of eco-design practices in industry.

It is our opinion that what is really needed now is the capture of practical knowledge, rather than the development of new eco-design methods and tools. We believe that there is, firstly, a need to compare existing practice and knowledge in order to extract eco-design standards and then, secondly, see how such standards can support selection of the most suitable eco-design tool for a specific design situation.

In this context, this paper deals first with the definition of a common framework to support the comparison of those projects reported to have been successful in the development of eco-design products. The research methodology is explained in Section 2. The framework comprises of a description of both the eco-design tools and the eco-design projects. The methods of classification developed in this research are presented in Sections 3 and 4, respectively, for the eco-design tools and the eco-design projects. Finally, using our proposed framework, we characterised the 40 eco-design projects that we found in the literature, company websites and technical reports from specialised agencies and presented the result in Section 5.

2. Research methodology

The first stage of the research to create the framework required the establishment of a general definition of eco-projects and eco-design tools, as well as an understanding of the main drivers that support their use. The main objective was to identify the integral features of each project that considered environmental concerns during the product design and development process. This was achieved by conducting a literature review of case studies and pilot projects that focussed on their outputs. In terms of the eco-design tools, the main purpose was to identify those tools used by designers and engineers to include and manage environmental concerns in the product design and development process. The set of tools identified included examples with much broader scope than was initially anticipated for eco-design tools and, consequently, was renamed as eco-tools. This decision is explained in more detail in Section 3.1.

The second stage was the development of the classification framework. The objective here was to devise a general framework that combined the main characteristics of an eco-design project with the main properties that make an eco-tool effective and efficient. This required detailed descriptions of each of the projects and tools that would identify distinction and enable comparison. The drivers extracted from the first stage of the research were used to identify the criteria for consideration and options were developed for each criterion.

The final stage was validation of the framework using cases. Fifty-two case studies were extracted from the literature as a basis for analysis but only 40 were documented in detail for the validation of the framework. The reference sources for the 40 case studies are presented in Appendix 1. Each case study was characterised using the set of criteria for both the project description and the tools used to make the integration of environmental concerns in the design process.

3. Characterisation method for eco-tools

3.1 About eco-tool selection

The initial intention to look for the eco-design tools changed after the first survey of the literature. The findings suggested a broader set of tools, techniques, norms, rules and checklists that could enable engineers and designers to include and manage environmental concerns in the product design and development process. For this reason, the term ‘eco-design tool’ was changed to ‘eco-tool’ to include other techniques, norms, tools and directives, which were not specific to eco-design. This approach was derived from Baumann et al. (2002) who, after completing a survey of the environmentally conscious product development field, highlighted the concept of tool as

Judging from literature, the engineer's research work on EPD (Environmental Product Development) revolves much around systematising the EPD process, finding ways of describing environmental aspects of material selection and generalised ways of dealing with environmental information. In short, research with this perspective concerns development of environmental design strategies, methodologies and techniques for product development, or just ‘tools’. The term ‘tool’ will be used in the following as shorthand for any systematic means for dealing with environmental issues during the product development process. Tools of many different kinds were found in the literature, ranging from simple checklists to sophisticated computer-based expert systems, including technical strategies such as material substitution or dematerialisation.

This definition of tool was adopted but with the inclusion of the term ‘eco’ at the beginning to emphasise the idea that the tools considered are specifically tools used to include and manage environmental concerns in the product design and development process and thus distinguish them from any other tools that might be used during product design and development. The term used in the following sections will be eco-tool rather than eco-design tool.

Conducting the literature review of case studies and pilot projects, 35 eco-tools were found according to the previous definition. The eco-tools considered were used or cited to be used in the cases by engineers and designers towards the mentioned purpose. This list includes directives such as WEEE that, although it is not strictly a tool, was used as a tool by the designers and engineers in the case where it was found. A similar approach was used by Knight and Jenkins (2009) in their classification of tools, techniques and methods. They considered three basic categories of tools and methods appropriate from an environmental and user perspective. The categories mentioned in that study include ISO/TR 14062 and different frameworks such as design for recycling, design for disassembly and design for lifetime optimisation. Although these terms do not represent a specific tool, Knight and Jenkins (2009) considered them as tools and methods to manage environmental concerns in the product design and development process in a broad definition of each category. In this sense, it was decided to include such norms, directives and frameworks as eco-tools in order to recognise the essence of their use in the case studies analysed. There are other similar norms and directives that are not included in the list, because there was no evidence of their use as tools in the product design and development process.

Each eco-tool identified was described in a database using information from the cases within which they were used. Additional information was extracted also from the developers of the tool and from classifications found in the literature such as EcoDesignARC (2005), Byggeth and Hochschorner (2006) and Unger et al. (2008). The descriptions include the main functions of the tool, an assessment of the nature of the outputs and an assessment of their life cycle perspective (Boks 2006, Byggeth and Hochschorner 2006, Vezzoli and Sciana 2006, Hojer et al. 2008, Finnveden et al. 2009).

3.2 Proposal of a usage-oriented eco-tool classification

Based on the literature review, from both scientific and software vendors and from the deep survey of the case studies, each eco-tool was characterised using three properties: its complexity, or the level of expertise required for its use (Unger et al. 2008); its type, or the nature of the information delivered; and its main function, or its practical utility. This is a usage-oriented classification.

3.2.1 Complexity

Complexity is related to the resources required to use the tool: amount of time, amount of input information and level of expertise required. The concept was adapted from Unger et al. (2008) and Lee and Park (2005). With this base, three options were developed for the assessment of the level of complexity:

•	High level of complexity (A). Eco-tools need a high level of information to work properly and high levels of time to be operated correctly. Consequently, experts can only operate them because they need previous knowledge and practice. This group includes tools such as LCA software and Environmental Management Systems. The outputs from such complex tools are complete quantitative models that include environmental impacts, eco-balances and costs and the possibility for conducting sensitivity analyses. They call for systemic visions and mathematical interpretations.
•	Medium level of complexity (B). These eco-tools are generally simpler to use than those of category A. They need less information and time to produce usable results. The output data can be both quantitative and qualitative, but the quantitative information is less complete and more aggregated than in the eco-tools of category A. This is mainly due to the assumptions that are quite rough but accurate enough to provide discrimination. This category includes Eco-indicator methods, Life Cycle Inventory tools, Life Cycle Costing software and some eco-design pilots.
•	Low level of complexity (C). These eco-tools are intended for quick and easy use and do not require previous knowledge of their use. These eco-tools are very useful in creative meetings where engineers and designers need quick environmental product profiles, without too many details, to evaluate a concept or to explain a particular point. This category includes eco-tools such as eco-design wheels, databases and some design frameworks.

3.2.2 Type of tool

Knight and Jenkins (2009) developed a classification based on three categories: guidelines, checklists and analytical tools. However, Baumann et al. (2002) proposed a classification based on six categories: frameworks, checklists and guidelines, rating and ranking tools, analytical tools, software and expert systems and organising tools. Following our analysis of the description of each of these categories and after application to our list of eco-tools, we proposed the retention of only three categories, namely analytical, guiding and information tools.

•	Analytical tools (1). Eco-tools oriented to carry out systematic analyses with a high level of detail and that generally take into consideration more than one stage of the product design and development process and, in many cases, all the stages. The principal outputs of these tools are quantitative. They include eco-tools such as Life Cycle Assessment, life cycle inventory, Energy Consumption Software, Eco-indicators and Life Cycle Work Environment.
•	Guiding tools (2). Eco-tools oriented to provide guidance to the user to produce simplified environmental product profiles, to identify opportunity areas with some environmental indicators and to make product evaluations or comparisons based on the environmental product performance. They support idea generation and advise the designer. Eco-tools such as guidelines, eco-design pilots and strategic wheels are in this category.
•	Information tools (3). Tools developed to provide general information about materials and restricted substances; frameworks in a particular domain, such as recycling, manufacturing or assembly; but with low levels of detail and in general terms. However, the information may be very accurate in a specific database. Often these eco-tools are used in just one stage of the product design and development process. Some examples are design for recycling, design for assembly, design for manufacturing, databases and some checklists.

3.2.3 Main function

The third criterion, main function, focuses upon the practical utility of the tool: it considers information on the actual use from the case studies as well as information from the tool developers. Although for almost all of the eco-tools considered, there is more than one function; the intention was to focus on the principal function. However, secondary usages are included in the database because they are beneficial for designers.

Eight main functions were identified: life cycle assessment (1), simplified life cycle assessment (2), life cycle inventory (3), life cycle costing (4), life cycle work environment (5), impact assessment (6), eco-design support (7) and product evaluation (8).

In the ISO 14000 family, there are particular standards that describe the life cycle assessment process in detail (Quella and Schmidt 2003). For example, ISO 14040:2006 covers the conceptual basis and framework of a life cycle assessment taking into account the phases of life cycle inventory, life cycle impact assessment, life cycle interpretation and reporting. However, in order to remain loyal to the information found in the case studies, it was necessary to separate these phases.

Although there are several stages involved in life cycle assessment, they were not always fully deployed in the case studies examined. In some cases, the engineers and designers made reference to a particular eco-tool just to show how they used it to make, for example an impact assessment when the life cycle inventory was conducted either by using another eco-tool or by obtaining the information from a third party. In this sense, the distinction between the eight main functions reflects the information found in the cases and a consideration of second and third functionalities is one way to recognise the relationships between the functions and the multifunctionality of almost all of the tools included.

In the end, the classification of the 35 eco-tools studied was based on these three criteria (i.e. complexity level A, B or C; type 1, 2 or 3; and main function, from 1 to 8) and the options associated with them. The result is shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Thirty-five eco-tools and their classification.

Ref	Tool	Classification
1	LiDS-Wheel	C27
2	Eco-Indicator 99	B16
3	Ecoindicator 95	B16
4	Materials, energy and toxicity (MET)-matrix	C16
5	GaBi 4.0	B13
6	Environmental improvement made easy (EIME)	B13
7	WEEE-based tool	B27
8	Eco-It	B12
9	DEAM (Data Base)	B33
10	TEAM 4.0	A11
11	EDIP 97	B16
12	Sim apro	A11
13	Smart EcoDesign	C27
14	Design for assembly (DFA) software DFMA Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.	C37
15	Design for environment (DFE) DFMA Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.	C37
16	IDEMAT	B33
17	Design for manufacturing (DFM) DFMA Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.	C37
18	Design for disassembly (DFD) GaBi DfX	C37
19	Green Design Advisor (GDA) Motorola Inc.	A27
20	CMLCA chain management by LCA	B16
21	POEMS	A17
22	Ecodesign PILOT	B27
23	Design for recycling (DFR) GaBi DfX	C37
24	Quality function deployment (QFD) modified	C27
25	Eco Invent	B33
26	EEE-PILOT	B27
27	Umberto (ifu Hamburg GmbH)	B13
28	Atroid renamed Prod Tect	B17
29	COMPASS	A27
30	Eco Scan 3.0	B16
31	Materials, energy, chemicals, others (MECO) matrix	C16
32	Entropy Software (BSI)	A27
33	Repro2 (G-SCOP)	B17
34	EPS 2000 Design System	B13
35	Environmentally responsible product assessment matrix (ERPA)	C16

Table 1 can be interpreted by considering examples. The first eco-tool considered, ‘LiDS Wheel’, is classified as C27 that means that it has a low level of complexity (C); it is a tool that guides designers (2) and that it mainly addresses the eco-design support function (7). On the other hand, the eco-tool 10 ‘TEAM 4.0.’ is said to be A11 for high complexity level (A), analytical tool (1) and life cycle assessment (1) as the main function.

The criteria used to classify the eco-tools reflect the information found in the case studies and the judgements of the engineers and designers who used them. However, there is a fine line between the categories, and for this reason, the criteria were also supported by the previous classifications such as those of Baumann et al. (2002), Knight and Jenkins (2009), EcoDesignARC (2005), Byggeth and Hochschorner (2006) and Unger et al. (2008), while still conserving the impressions derived from the case studies.

3.3 Eco-tool categories

Table 2 summarises the analysis of the tool sets from the three usage-oriented criteria and is of particular interest, because it shows the tool availability from a designer's perspective. For design projects, the tools were developed to be relatively simple even though the environment is a complex phenomenon: 18 ‘B’, 11 ‘C’ and only 6 ‘A’. Half of them are analytical tools that quantify performances (18 of type 1), and a quarter just delivers general information (8 of type 3). The transformation of information into an easily useful form for designers is implemented in only 25% of the tools (9 of type 2). Finally, tools are more complementary than expected covering the function field quite well. Due to the design orientation of the study, the eco-design support function is highlighted in half of the tools (17 of function 7) but only 10 require a high level of environment expertise (those of functions 1, 2 and 3). A good compromise was found in 8 tools of function 6 as they provided accurate environmental information in an understandable manner for designers.

Table 2 Number of eco-tools by criterion options.

Tool complexity
‘A’	‘B’	‘C’
6	18	11
Type of tool
‘1’	‘2’	‘3’
18	9	8
Main tool function
‘1’	‘2’	‘3’	‘4’	‘5’	‘6’	‘7’	‘8’
2	1	7	0	0	8	17	0

The overall set of eco-tools was finally classified in 12 categories according to the three criteria (Figure 1 and Table 3). Only 12 combinations out of the 72 possibilities (3 × 3 × 8) are covered by the 35 eco-tools considered.

Figure 1 Number of eco-tools in each category.

Table 3 Eco-tools distributed by categories.

Category	No. of tools	Eco-tools
C27	3	1	13	24
B16	5	2	3	11	20	30
C16	3	4	31	35
B13	4	5	6	27	34
B27	3	7	22	26
B12	1	8
B33	3	9	16	25
A11	2	10	12
C37	5	14	15	17	18	23
A27	3	19	29	32
A17	1	21
B17	2	28	33

In Figure 1, it is possible to see how the eco-tools are distributed in categories built with the three criteria of classification. For example, if an eco-tool belongs to the category B13, this means B for medium level of complexity; 1 for analytical tool and 3 for life cycle inventory as the main function. In the B13 category, four tools are considered to be similar: tools 5, 6, 27 and 34 (see Table 3 for the categories and Table 1 for the names of the tools). They are similar from the design usage perspective, because they have similar usage properties and consequently are interchangeable from an external perspective. The final selection depends on an internal company decision.

4. Characterisation method for eco-design projects

4.1 Type of projects considered

The case studies considered in this research were derived from projects intended to incorporate environmental concerns in the product design and development process as a means to improve product performance, to assess the products or to fulfil external requirements.

The most remarkable observation for the 40 case studies considered is the prevalence of cooperation in the majority of these cases. Figure 2 shows that during this initial period of time, the eco-design projects were mainly conducted (two-thirds of them) by collaborative research including both private and public units, in which the partners learned from each other. Nine projects were university or research institute pilots and only five were conducted by a private company working independently.

Figure 2 Distribution of the cases according to its developer.

4.2 Characterisation of the eco-design projects

Mathieux et al. (2001) and Unger et al. (2008) highlighted the importance of identifying the relevant criteria to choose the right eco-tool for the objective desired, according to the actors and the product design and development process. Despite every case being different, it is necessary to identify and build this set of relevant criteria in order to characterise the cases and construct the relationships between the characterisation and the eco-tools that could be useful to achieve product's environmental improvements.

The criteria were selected from the literature relating to the eco-tools and the projects to design environment friendly products. The literature covered fields from eco-tool selection research (Unger et al. 2008) to that focused on describing the product design and development process (Andreasen and Hein 1987, Ullman 1997, Ulrich and Eppinger 2004). After this literature review and with confirmation from industrial experience, seven criteria were selected to characterise the eco-design projects.

1.	Project objective
2.	Innovation level achieved
3.	Stages of the design and development process involved
4.	Eco-design strategies used
5.	Productive sector
6.	Amount of information available
7.	Technology lifespan

Options were defined for each criterion, based on literature and practice, and each design project was characterised by one option for each of the seven criteria. Figure 3 shows the definition of each criterion.

Figure 3 Criteria to characterise the eco-design projects.

5. Results

5.1 Case studies characterisation

The objective of this study was to find the features of each of the 40 cases and extract from them the information to fulfil each criterion and select the right option. It was during this process that the original 52 cases were reduced to 40 that met the conditions described in Section 4.1, i.e. a clear intention to take into account environmental concerns in the product design and development process. This intention could be expressed by product evaluations, designs, redesigns or product comparisons with different levels of implementation.

To characterise each criterion, it was necessary to define one question to identify and facilitate the option selection. The idea was to formulate questions related to each one of the seven criteria enunciated in Section 4.2. The questions were as follows:

•	What is the project objective?
•	What is the innovation level achieved?
•	What stages of the product design and development process are involved?
•	What eco-design strategies follow the project?
•	In which productive sector is it possible to locate the product?
•	What is the level of information known about the product?
•	What is the technology life cycle of the product?

Forty cases were interrogated and the information was compiled into a master matrix. In Figure 4, it is possible to see the way in which the information is represented in the matrix. For each case (line), the options (columns) selected are represented by the number ‘1’ and the options that are not selected are represented by the number ‘0’. For example, for case study 1 and the first criterion ‘What is the project objective?’ the option selected was number 3 ‘Re-design’ and for the second criterion ‘What is the innovation level achieved?’ the option selected was number 2 ‘Partial Improvement’. Each case is represented by a vector of 32 bits for the 32 possible options as depicted in Figure 5. Finally, the matrix is composed of 40 lines (the vectors represented the 40 cases) of 32 bits (the characterisation of the project through the 32 options).

Figure 4 The characterisation matrix (extract).

Figure 5 Example of a case characterisation.

The final action was to connect together the eco-design projects and the eco-tools used within the same framework. This was readily achieved by adding the eco-tools used in the given project at the end of the line describing the specific project.

In the master matrix, it is the name (number) of the eco-tools associated with the project that appears and not the categories of the tools as defined earlier. This is because the framework supports the characterisation of the eco-design cases reported in a very practical and complete way without any interpretation. It is easy to add a new case by creating a new line at the end of the matrix and by completing the respective characterisation.

6. Conclusions

The intention to present a framework that supported the characterisation and finally the classification of both the eco-design projects and the eco-tools was successfully implemented using the 40 cases extracted from the literature. This demonstrates a robust solution. This method was developed with cases of high quality; the eco-tools included effectively represent the variety of the market offer, and the process to extract the information from the case studies was conducted carefully and in a scientific manner. Extension of the database to include new cases is very easy: it is simply necessary to characterise a project against the criteria and create a new matrix line. The addition of a new eco-tool is also easy because of the categories defined: a new eco-tool must be characterised against the three criteria that will finally cluster it in one of the categories, it is then indexed automatically.

This research provides the opportunity to compare different cases because they have been put in a common framework. From this comparison, it is possible to better understand how designers and engineers take environmental concerns into account during the product design and development process and derive the most appropriate standards to help disseminate this idea within firms. This is especially valuable for small firms that have not been exposed to support projects and are in the introductory phase of integrating concepts such as eco-design, environmentally friendly products, sustainability and life cycle responsibility. When considering that existing eco-tools can change and new ones can enter the market, this contribution can also be used as a conceptual basis for the understanding and classification of new eco-tools simply either for analysis or for inclusion in the list.

Finally, the case studies used in this research and the final characterisation could be the starting point for the development of an eco-tool selection procedure that would enable a user to extract existing experience and apply it to similar products. This research activity has already been started, and the method will be proposed very soon.

Appendix 1. Case study references

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