In light of increasing pressure from environmental safety advocate groups and governments for eco-friendly manufacturing, safe after life product & waste disposal has had strong emphasizes in the past several years. Industrial manufacturers are becoming more and more responsive towards environment safety concerns. These efforts are being reflected by concepts such as green design or environmentally responsible design and manufacturing (ERDM). The key research areas in the 21st century for reducing the toll on the environment will be material recycling, controlled waste disposal (including fluids and gases) and remanufacturing. Remanufacturing offers a dual advantage over material recycling. First the geometrical form of the product and the functional capabilities are restored with fairly low costs. Second, it reduces the need for dumping or disposal, making it better for the environment Remanufacturing is also an avenue to enforce product take back which has become important for the integrating environmental considerations. Remanufacturing can be lucrative and thus a motivating factor for the profit oriented industrial community.The work in this research is based on making remanufacturing more distinctive in terms of product design. An approach that incorporates remanufacturing principles at the product design inception phase can be highly beneficial in the context of after life processing of product. The approach used in this research is one of determining a suitable method of calculating the remanufacturing index (RI). The remanufacturing index of a product serves as a beforehand indication of the degree of the efforts return a product to its original geometrical shape and functional capabilities. This index will provide an insight at the time of initial design of a particular product for understanding afterlife scenarios, which might help to reduce waste, save energy, virgin material, and other resources.The remanufacturing index formulation devised in this research considers all the major aspects of product after life, including disassembly, recycling and other damage correction efforts. This research offers modular analyses of a product for the purpose of remanufacturing. The index is a collection of interfacing elements such as inspection, damage correction and environmental impact. It considers all possible after life aspects of a product and combines them in a systematic manner to give a fair outlook of efforts to remanufacture.

My research is focused upon what industrial designers can contribute in order to mitigate environmental problems often caused by their designs. The intent is to propose a procedure to integrate eco-effectiveness at the beginning of the design process, to consider it at each stage of the product’s lifecycle, and to measure that product’s environmental performance in order to make informed design decisions. At each stage the designer can follow this flexible process, which is intended to work in conjunction with individual creative methods while prioritizing the need for eco-effectiveness. The goal is to develop a procedure that is simple enough for designers to use every day and that could also provide means of verification, rather than relying on assumptions and good intentions. I acknowledge that efforts from a single discipline are not enough. In order to address the environmental challenges we face today, collaboration among disciplines will be necessary, as well as a change of behavior and attitudes towards consumption. This is my contribution. / text

Capital investments provide both the opportunity and responsibility to design for sustainability since most of the environmental impact of a production system is determined by the design phase. However, today’s capital investment process of production lacks adaptation to sustainability needs. This thesis identifies the main deficiencies in the capital investment process of production that currently limit the environmental performance of equipment by means of a pharmaceutical industry case. The results indicate that to foster a more sustainable capital investment process, further strategic guidance, responsibility allocation, facilitating organisational conditions, information transparency and sustainability expertise are required. Equipment suppliers consider that better communication and the integration of sustainability into their customers’ business cases can facilitate more environmentally sustainable equipment delivery. A concept is proposed for systematically integrating environmental sustainability into the capital investment process of production in the future. / Kapitalinvesteringar ger möjlighet och ansvar att designa för hållbarhet eftersom det mesta av ett produktionssystems miljöpåverkan bestäms i designfasen. Dagens kapitalinvesteringsprocess för produktion saknar dock anpassning till hållbarhetsbehov. Denna uppsats identifierar de viktigaste bristerna i kapitalinvesteringsprocessen för produktion som för närvarande begränsar utrustningens miljöprestanda med hjälp av ett fall från läkemedelsindustrin. Resultaten visar att för att främja en mer hållbar kapitalinvesteringsprocess krävs ytterligare strategisk vägledning, ansvarsfördelning, underlättande organisatoriska förhållanden, informationstransparens och hållbarhets-expertis. Utrustningsleverantörer tycker att bättre kommunikation och i synnerhet integreringen av hållbarhet i deras kunders affärsplaner kan underlätta mer miljömässigt hållbara utrustningsleveranser. Ett koncept föreslås för att systematiskt integrera miljömässig hållbarhet i kapitalinvesteringsprocessen för produktion i framtiden.

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This thesis attempts to establish a first design philosophy by proposing nature and architecture as mutually interactive conceits within the scope of the design process. Positing that our conceptions of "green" design are rightfully influenced by the various and often highly metaphorical social constructions of nature that precede them, an architecural exercise is then explored as a similarly constructed response. After assembling a definition of nature based in part on the climate, terrain and traditional building practices of rural western North Carolina, a house is then posed for its site on the border of the Pisgah National Forest. / Master of Architecture

Despite the fact that Sustainable Development (SD) has been growing since the 1980s, methods and models that assist in carrying out sustainable strategies are still uncommon. IT managers at AstraZeneca (AZ) struggle to come up with the most sustainable decision in IT because there are no methods/models that facilitate such a decision-making process at AZ. This thesis aims at evaluating newly suggested sustainability additions to the Adaptive Delivery Framework (ADF) by comparing them to the Green Design (GD) (a model for sustainable decision-making of capital investment projects at AZ) and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The evaluation was done using quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative method utilized a method from previous research that employs pair-wise comparisons and matrix multiplication, and the qualitative method was in the form of one-on-one semi-structured interviews with AstraZeneca employees. The results showed that the new ADF performed sufficiently well against the already established GD and the literature’s state-of-the-art AHP. The new additions to ADF are capable of dealing with the sustainability problems of IT. Furthermore, the results from the quantitative and the qualitative methods suggested that the additions could improve in three key areas, namely the interdisciplinary approach, long-term perspective, and participation. First, the interdisciplinary approach could be improved by including the indirect and transformational effects of IT. Second, the long-term perspective could be improved by incorporating some long-term assessments, such as the expected number of uses, expected data access proportion, and the expected lifetime. Third, the participation could be improved by including a facilitator during the URS meetings. / Trots att hållbar utveckling SD har vuxit sedan dess 1980-talet, metoder och modeller som hjälper till att genomföra hållbara strategier är fortfarande ovanliga. IT-chefer på AstraZeneca (AZ) kämpar för att komma upp med det mest hållbara beslutet inom IT eftersom det inte finns några metoder/modeller som underlättar en sådan beslutsprocess på AZ. Denna avhandling syftar till utvärderar nyligen föreslagna hållbarhetstillägg till Adaptive Delivery Framework (ADF) genom att jämföra dem med Green Design (GD) (en modell för hållbart beslutsfattande av kapitalinvesteringsprojekt på AZ) och den Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Utvärderingen gjordes med hjälp av kvantitativa och kvalitativa metoder. Den kvantitativa metoden använde en metod från tidigare forskning som använder parvisa jämförelser och matrismultiplikation, och den kvalitativa metoden var i form av en- semistrukturerade intervjuer med AstraZeneca anställda. Resultaten visade att den nya ADF:en fungerade tillräckligt bra mot den redan etablerade GD och litteraturens toppmoderna AHP. De nya tilläggen till ADF är kapabla att hantera hållbarhetsproblemen inom IT. Dessutom, resultaten från de kvantitativa och kvalitativa metoderna antydde det tilläggen skulle kunna förbättras inom tre nyckelområden, nämligen det tvärvetenskapliga förhållningssätt, långsiktighet och delaktighet. Först det tvärvetenskapliga tillvägagångssätt skulle kunna förbättras genom att inkludera indirekta och transformerande effekter av IT. För det andra skulle det långsiktiga perspektivet kunna förbättras genom att införliva vissa långsiktiga bedömningar, såsom det förväntade antalet användningar, förväntas dataåtkomstandel och förväntad livslängd. För det tredje, deltagandet skulle kunna förbättras genom att inkludera en facilitator under URS-mötena.

This thesis describes and demonstrates a method for consolidating, developing, and using green design guidelines for the innovation of greener products. Life cycle analysis (LCA) is one well-accepted tool for quantifying the environmental impacts of a product so designers can identify areas for redesign effort. However, LCA is a retrospective design tool that requires detailed design information that isn’t known until designs are near completion. Alternatively, green design guidelines provide proven techniques for designing greener products. They can be used during the early stages of design, when many decisions fundamental to innovation and environmental impact are made and before LCA is viable. This thesis extends the work already done in green design guidelines, by updating the current knowledge base and introducing a method for extending the set of existing guidelines to encompass new and emerging areas of sustainability. While guidelines have been created from prior experience in design for environment and life cycle analysis, they have not been maintained as a shared and coordinated repertoire of green design solutions. Instead, sets of guidelines are scattered throughout the literature, contain overlaps, operate at different levels of abstraction, and have varying levels of completeness. For example, some areas of green design guidelines, such as design for disassembly, are well established, while other areas of green design guidelines, such as minimizing energy consumption during use, are still being explored. Additionally, while numerous examples of green design guidelines exist, many of the guidelines have no documented validation of their life cycle impacts. The work for this thesis began with the compilation of a dynamic knowledge base of green design guidelines. This set of guidelines is a consolidation and updating of the green design guidelines already available in literature and can be used as a starting poinrt for future improvements and extensions as the field develops. A standard method was then proposed and tested for creating guidelines in currently undeveloped areas of green design, particularly energy consumption during the operation of a product. The method employs reverse engineering techniques and life cycle analysis to identify green requirements and develop corresponding, new green design guidelines. A case study of electric kettles demonstrated the usefulness of the method by yielding four new guidelines and four, corresponding, energy saving re-designs. For this example, the redesigns showed that guidelines can reduce energy consumption, but may incur tradeoffs with other life cycle stages. Calculation of tradeoffs revealed a range of net life cycle impact values that were caused by increased manufacturing demands and variability in consumer use habits. In addition to redesign in the kettle study, the four new guidelines were tested for usefulness in new product design by use of focus groups. Two groups were tasked with designing a new energy efficient toaster concept. Only one group was given the four green design guidelines that were uncovered using the proposed method. The design group using the new green design guidelines produced more viable and practical green features than the design group that did not have the guidelines as a design tool. These preliminary results suggest that the proposed method is useful for creating new guidelines that are beneficial to design teams tackling novel design problems that differ from the original case study. Further work is needed to establish the statistical significance of these results. / text

China has become one of the world’s economic engines. One major driving force is the rapid urbanization. Such fast development results in resource and energy depletion, pollution and environmental deterioration. The government has recently endorsed green buildings and urged ministries to work out a national action plan. It is predicted that green building will be the next big thing in China. But before importing any foreign green technology and green designs, is there something to be learned from the Chinese ancestors? In the long history of China, the Chinese have always employed a system of construction with the influences of geography, climate, culture, philosophy, economy and politics deeply rooted in China, making the Chinese traditional architecture distinct. Embedded in the formation of the city, siheyuan 四合院, the courtyard house in Beijing was one exceptional dwelling example that inherited the quintessence of the thousand years of building experiences and knowledge of the ancestors. This traditional urban type not only celebrated the rich and unique cultural heritage of China, it also played an important role in maximizing the natural forces to create a pleasant and comfortable environment for living. Population growth, political and economic reforms over time however have drastically changed the fate of this historical heritage. Especially under the pressure of the fast development and economic boom after the introduction of the Open Door Policy in 1978, the traditional courtyards were the first to be demolished due to the lack of modern facilities and the inability to accommodate the growing population. They were often replaced by apartment blocks and high-rise towers – imported types based on planning regulations developed in the West, outside the cultural and environmental milieu of Beijing. As a result, the city is now filled with many energy intensive buildings that eat away both the “city’s essence” and the valuable natural resources. With the current policy and ambition of China, the teardown courtyard sites within the old city wall that are still waiting for development offer the potential to address the remediation and reinterpretation of the traditional typology in a contemporary city. The thesis investigates the essences of the traditional courtyard house and explores the way to apply such qualities to the design of a new courtyard typology in contemporary Beijing. The proposal anticipates a holistic approach on both environmental, social, cultural and economic level, so as to carry out preservation that manifests in experience rather than physical restoration, and to create a project that is truly sustainable.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (or LEED) is the most commonly used green building rating system in the United States, bestowing upon LEED certified buildings the prestige of being considered more sustainable than their non-certified neighbors. The public often assumes that LEED certified buildings are completely sustainable or even net-zero with regards to greenhouse gas emissions, but in actuality buildings certified under the most popular version of LEED are only required to be 15% more energy efficient than required by most state building codes – a far cry from the energy usage cuts needed to stave off global warming. By examining the history of LEED and its parent organization (the United States Green Building Council), contemporary criticisms of the certification system and its widespread adoption, and real-world performance of existing LEED buildings, this thesis seeks to uncover whether the LEED system is an effective tool in the fight against climate change and why it has yet to live up to its name.