Environmental labels on products and services have been increasingly significant in influencing consumer purchasing and represent a crucial communication of the environmental credentials of products and companies. Yet their importance to industrial designers, who are recognised as having significant influence over the environmental impact of products, is less known. The overall aim of this research project is to investigate factors affecting the implementation of UK environmental labels by in-house industrial designers in UK Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). A review of the literature on industrial designers and environmental labels found that there was a gap in knowledge surrounding the factors affecting how and whether in-house industrial designers implement labels in their work, and what understanding they have. In response to the literature review a number of research questions were generated, which influenced the direction of this emergent, exploratory research. A Preliminary Study was set up to collect qualitative data from practicing industrial designers in UK SMEs on their recognition and use of environmental label schemes. A mock-up Resource was consequently developed that provided the information the Preliminary Study participants claimed to need. During the Main Study the Resource was used as an elicitation tool to further probe designers' understanding and use of labels. Subsequently, three Case Studies were conducted with UK SMEs who have implemented labels on their products, to identify elements of best practice. The in-house SME designers in the study appeared to have knowledge of environmental label types and schemes. Both this and designers' position within their companies especially in terms of their input on design briefs moderates their ability to implement labels. The cooperation and contribution of colleagues is also significant to the effective application including driving their use and being willing to include them in the product development process from early stages to impact on success or effectiveness. It is suggested that a whole company approach is needed. This thesis provides an original contribution to knowledge on in-house designers' capability to implement labels; understanding of designers' current knowledge and use of labels; and the role of designers in all SMEs, not just those engaged in ecodesign or using environmental labels.

<p><em>Abstract</em></p><p>The research behind this licentiate is spread out over a decade of intensive development of environmental work in industry. A 1998 survey of Swedish companies with newly installed environmental management systems (EMS) concluded that such systems need more product-orientation. Data collected by companies as part of the process of creating their EMS between 1996-2001 offered further evidence that it is environmentally justified to seek improvements in the materials selection, use and disposal phases of products, i.e., to make the environmental improvement work more product-orientated. In a EU-funded project carried out between 2004-2006 it was demonstrated that developing an environmental product declaration could be a cost-effective product-oriented environmental action even for smaller companies.</p><p>This licentiate thesis relates to methods for companies to orientate their environmental work on their products. In particular, it examines experience and provides insights on the possibilities for companies, including small ones, to use life cycle assessment in product development in order to design products with an environmental performance well above legal compliance.</p><p>It is difficult to give general recommendations to companies about their environmental work because each company has its own unique business idea, customers, work culture, stakeholders etc. Nevertheless, the main findings of the licentiate thesis can be summed up in the following recommendations for, say, a small company in Europe without much previous experience of environmental work:</p><p>§  Focus your environmental work on your products because you will accomplish more environmentally and the chance of profiting economically will motivate your personnel;</p><p>§  Consider doing a life cycle assessment, LCA, on a strategically chosen product in order to learn more about your products and how to improve their environmental performance;</p><p>§  Do not expect to find a general market demand for green products; start a dialogue with your best customers in order to create the demand;</p><p>§  Engage an LCA specialist to do the LCA and work together with your personnel to interpret the results and generate improvement ideas;</p><p>§  If your customers demand that you install an environmental management system, ask them if they would not prefer to receive an environmental product declaration on the particular product they are interested in, and a chance to discuss how its environmental performance can be improved.</p>

Product development is a particularly critical intervention point for the transformation of society towards sustainability. Current socio-ecological impacts over product life-cycles are evidence that current practices are insufficient. The aim of this thesis is to form a foundation for sustainable product development through the integration of a sustainability perspective into product development procedures and processes. Literature reviews and theoretical considerations as well as interviews, questionnaires, observations, testing and action research through case studies in various companies have indicated gaps in current methodology and have guided the development of a new general Method for Sustainable Product Development (MSPD). This method combines a framework for strategic sustainable development based on backcasting from basic sustainability principles with a standard concurrent engineering development model. A modular system of guiding questions, derived by considering the sustainability principles and the product life-cycle, is the key feature. Initial testing indicates that this MSPD works well for identification of sustainability problems as well as for generation of possible solutions. However, these tests also indicate that there is sometimes a desire for a quick overview of the sustainability performance of a specific product category. This is to guide early strategic decisions before the more comprehensive and detailed work with the MSPD is undertaken, or, alternatively, when an overview is sufficient to make decisions. In response, a Template for Sustainable Product Development (TSPD) approach is presented as a supplement to the MSPD. To generate products that support sustainable development of society it is necessary to combine sustainability assessments with improvements of technical product properties. An introductory procedure for such sustainability-driven design optimization is suggested based on a case study. For maximum efficiency of a company in finding viable pathways towards sustainability, it is also necessary to coordinate different methods and tools that are useful for sustainable product development and integrate them into the overall decision-making processes at different levels in companies. To find gaps in the sustainability integration in a company’s decision system, an assessment approach is suggested based on case studies. A general conclusion from this research is that the support needed for making sustainability-related decisions are not systematically integrated in companies today. However, this thesis also indicates that it is possible to create generic methods and tools that aid the integration of sustainability aspects in companies’ strategic decision-making and product development. These methods and tools can be used to guide the prioritization of investments and technical optimization on the increasingly sustainability-driven market, thus providing a foundation for competitive sustainable product development.

THE TITLE OF THE DIPLOMA THESIS AND ABSTRACT TITLE: The Legislation Governing Energy Efficiency in the European Union ABSTRACT: The European Union's energy policy has undergone a major transformation over the last few years. The interest in ensuring sustainability, self-sufficiency, competitiveness and secure energy supplies leads to deeper energy integration among Member States. High energy efficiency is an ideal tool for achieving these particular objectives because its basic principle is to provide more services while using the same or even less energy. As a result, a variety of conceptual instruments and relevant legislation have been revised over the last few years, which was accompanied by a conflict of interest between various stakeholders and the adoption of less than ideal compromise solutions. This diploma thesis aims to evaluate the current legislation on energy efficiency in the European Union, including its development. The thesis is divided into three parts, the first of which represents the initial theoretical basis that aims to define the basic concepts and indicators of energy efficiency. The second part deals with the strong link between environmental protection and energy efficiency while emphasizing the importance of fundamental environmental principles that are reflected in the...

L’objectif de cette thèse est le développement d’une méthodologie d’aide à l’écoconception permettant l’optimisation multi-objectifs du cycle de vie de produits. Le premier axe de travail est focalisé sur la phase d’utilisation. Il s’intéresse à la manière dont différents segments d’utilisateurs vont utiliser un même produit et aux répercussions que vont avoir ces différentes utilisations sur les performances de son cycle de vie. Le deuxième axe vise à élaborer une méthodologie de modélisation réaliste et pertinente du cycle de vie de produits. Il est centré sur une problématique cruciale des problèmes d’optimisation : l’élaboration de l’objectif de résolution. Il propose l’utilisation de technique d’identification et de quantification des besoins clients afin de définir un objectif de résolution orientant vers les solutions de conception respectant au mieux les attentes des clients. Le troisième axe a pour but d’obtenir, par l’optimisation, une sélection d’alternatives de conception permettant de maximiser les performances du système. Une modélisation “gros grain” du produit incluant ses composants et leurs alternatives y est réalisée. / The goal of the thesis is the development of an ecodesign-aid methodology for the multi criteria optimization of a product’s life cycle. The first axis is focused on the use phase. It aims at understanding how a variety of user sis going to use the same product in a variety of diverse ways and how these differences are going to impact negatively or positively the performances of the porduct’s life cyle. The second axis aims at developing a life cycle modelisation method focused on realism and pertinence. It is centered around a crucial problem of every optimization exercice: the definition of the optimization objective that will guide the whole optimization process. Here is proposed the use of a technique for the identification and the quantification of the customers needs. These characterized needs are then used to define an optimization objective that favors the solutions which best respect the customer’s demands. The third axis widen the scope of the product’s model to include design alternatives. The goal is to better the life cycle performances through simultaneous design optimization and design alternatives selection.

Tese de mestrado. Design Industrial. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto,. 2010

Dissertação de mestrado. Mestrado em Design Industrial. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2012

Notre travail s'intègre dans le cadre d'un programme de recherche relatif à l'amélioration des performances environnementales des appareillages de distribution électrique du centre de recherche et distribution de l'entreprise AREVA T&D. Il s'agit de développer une démarche d'éco-conception adaptée à ses produits et aux besoins de l'équipe de conception et consolidée sur le plan environnemental. Notre démarche s'est basée sur l'analyse du besoin des différents acteurs de l'équipe de conception, l'évaluation environnementale des produits existants et l'étude du processus de conception utilisé pour le développement de ces produits et de la stratégie d'éco-conception de l'entreprise. D'abord, nous avons identifié les outils d'éco-conception indispensables pour l'équipe de conception. Ensuite, l'étude du processus de conception existant nous a permis de déterminer des pistes d'intégration des paramètres environnementaux et des outils d'éco-conception durant les différentes phases de conception. Par ailleurs, nous avons étudié une série d'analyses de cycle de vie de produits de moyenne tension de catégories différentes ce qui nous a permis de déterminer la distribution des impacts environnementaux dans les phases de cycle de vie. Il en sort que la phase d'utilisation est la phase la plus polluante néanmoins très difficile à améliorer. La phase de distribution présente un impact très faible. Cela nous a permis de focaliser notre démarche sur les phases de fabrication et de fin de vie qui présentent un potentiel d'amélioration environnementale plus important. Notre approche d'éco-conception s'intègre au système existant et se base sur l'association du respect de la réglementation, la satisfaction des besoins de l'équipe de conception et l'amélioration des aspects environnementaux à forte marge d'amélioration.Nos travaux de recherche nous ont permis de développer un outil d'éco-conception (DECOD permettant d'assister le concepteur tout au long du processus de conception et plus particulièrement pour les arbitrages écologiques. L'application de notre outil sur un cas d'étude nous a permis de confirmer la fiabilité de notre démarche.

The focus of environmental work in manufacturing companies has increasingly shifted from end-of-pipe solutions to the environmental performance of products and services. The product development process is central to creating value for customers. This thesis argues that companies can simultaneously create value for consumers and be profitable while taking environmental considerations into account. Modernising ecodesign means taking advantage of environmental benefits and the innovation potential when developing solutions rather than using ecodesign simply to ensure that legal requirements or customer demands are met. Ecodesign is a strategic issue and should be included in early product development activities, such as for project selection and when setting product targets. There is also need to perform ecodesign according to the characteristics of specific development processes as for radical product development or when developing integrated solutions, using a combination of services and products. This thesis reports on the findings from five different research studies, all of which adopted a qualitative approach in which the emphasis falls on exploring and creating understanding and meaning. The studies focused on three areas of ecodesign: A) rethinking approaches for manufacturing companies, B) setting environmental project targets and project selection and C) redesign of products. Recommendations on how to modernise ecodesign have been developed and can be summarised in six points: • Perform ecodesign both vertically and horizontally in a company. • Increase interaction between organisational units. • Take advantage of innovation potential in products, services, user behaviour and the delivery and take-back systems. • Take environmental considerations into account in the project selection process. • Set environmental targets for ensuring that environmental considerations are taken when developing innovative solutions. • Develop ecodesign procedures that fit the characteristics of the development process

Environmental concern has greatly increased in magnitude within the companies of Swedish industry. Product development has become a strategic area: the environmental adaptation of products is fundamental for a decrease in environmental impact from human activities, and product development is an area of the greatest importance to the competitiveness of companies. Integrating environmental aspects into product development at operations level is needed to achieve product improvements. The theme of this thesis is how to integrate environmental aspects into product development. An overarching purpose has been to identify adequate activities and changes required for integration. Great importance has been attached to conducting changes, especially by investigating how successfully to implement support tools in product development. Qualitative research interviews have been used to collect empirical data. Conclusions on measures industrially applicable to enabling the integration of environmental aspects have been drawn, as empirical data and experiences have been accumulated. Environmental aspects give rise to new considerations in product development: causal relationships between products and environmental impact; the life-cycle approach; and, new priorities and trade-offs between function, cost and quality of products. A need for activities supporting these considerations is identified; and, preferably, several activities, concerning knowledge development, work procedures and support tools, should be applied. It is also important to identify environmental actors for providing expertise and enthusiasm in the organisation. The implementation of support tools has to be carefully considered. To guide such implementation a framework with key factors has been developed. The framework suggests a cyclical implementation process, identification of the organisational change field, and consistent management behaviour. Keys to successful implementation are goal setting, knowledge development, adequate resources, anchoring at all levels, and a focus on individuals. To stay competitive, companies need to be proactive and respond to the driving forces underlying environmental adaptation. To make possible the environmental adaptation of products, several measures are needed. The following proactive measures have been identified: Management ought to set direction with a comprehensive view on business development and physical flows in the business. Commitment to desired change must be created to make sure changes are accepted and durable. Knowledge and skills need to be developed with an action learning approach. Work procedures need to be adjusted to include environmental criteria and secure interaction between product developers and environmental experts. Support tools can support a structured approach and enable rapid progress to be attained. / QC 20100623