10 guidelines for ecodesign
- Do not design products, but life cycles
Think about all material inputs and energy use of a product during its whole life cycle. From cradle to grave, or even better from cradle to cradle! A simple way to document your findings is the MET matrix (Materials, Energy, Toxicity). Just write down some of the most important facts in a matrix.
- Natural materials are not always better
Of course, the production of 1 kg of wood causes less emissions than the production of 1 kg of plastic. But have you thought about the paint to preserve the wood, the energy needed to dry, the sawing losses? Environmentally sound materials do not exist, but environmentally friendly products and services do. Life cycle thinking helps a designer to develop these.
- Energy consumption: often underestimated
Many designers focus their attention on material selection. This is not always justified. People normally underestimate the environmental impacts of energy as you cannot hold electricity or gas in your hands.
- Increase product life time
You can influence the product life time in several ways. Make it more durable from a technical point of view, or by making it upgradeable (allowing to place the latest chip in a computer or washing machine).
More importantly, try to design the product in such a way people will feel attached to it. Many products are not thrown away because they are broken, but because owners got bored with them.
- Do not design products, but services
People do not always want a product. They want a solution for a certain problem. A service rather than a product can be the right solution.
- Use a minimum of material
Often you can reduce the amount of material by critically looking at dimensions, required strength and production techniques. It can even be beneficial to use materials that have a high environmental load per kilogram, if you can save weight. This is particularly true in transport, where less weight means less fuel consumption.
Do not only make your product recyclable, but use recycled materials as much as possible.If there is a demand for recycled materials the supply will follow certainly.
- Make your product recyclable
Only products that are disassembled easily and have a high enough yield will be chosen for recycling.
You can increase the chance that the product is recycled, by optimizing its design.
Very often decisions are based on common practice: "We have always done it this way and it has always worked well". You can make huge improvements in the environmental performance of products, with consequential cost savings, by simply asking the very obvious "Why?".
The guidelines above can easily help you to reduce the environmental burdens of a product by 30 to 50%. Real progress however can only be made if you are truly imaginative and think the unthinkable. A group of designers planning to do just that, have gathered in O2: an international network for sustainable design.
The ecodesign directive
Since 2007/2008, many mass-produced energy-using products (EuP) in the EU must conform to the EuP Ecodesign directive. The Directive establishes a framework for setting ecodesign requirements for all energy related products in the residential, tertiary, and industrial sectors. For each product group, an implementing measure is being developed to define the product requirements. If your product is affected by the Ecodesign Directive it will have to fullfil two alternative sets of requirements.
- An energy efficiency criterion: products may not use more than a certain amount of energy in the use phase.
- An ecodesign dossier: suppliers must be able to document the ecodesign efforts made to reduce the overall impact of the product throughout its life cycle. The implementing measure may give a list of key environmental performance indicators (KePIs) that need to be addressed.
Our Consultancy Team can help you translate implementing measures into practical measures and tools for designers. We will start by making a quick assessment on how well your products comply and what you need to improve. Next we can translate that into key environmental performance indicator (KePI) guidelines or other simple tools for your design team.
10 guidelines for ecodesign
- Do not design products, but life cycles
Think about all material inputs and energy use of a product during its whole life cycle. From cradle to grave, or even better from cradle to cradle! A simple way to document your findings is the MET matrix (Materials, Energy, Toxicity). Just write down some of the most important facts in a matrix.
- Natural materials are not always better
Of course, the production of 1 kg of wood causes less emissions than the production of 1 kg of plastic. But have you thought about the paint to preserve the wood, the energy needed to dry, the sawing losses? Environmentally sound materials do not exist, but environmentally friendly products and services do. Life cycle thinking helps a designer to develop these.
- Energy consumption: often underestimated
Many designers focus their attention on material selection. This is not always justified. People normally underestimate the environmental impacts of energy as you cannot hold electricity or gas in your hands.
- Increase product life time
You can influence the product life time in several ways. Make it more durable from a technical point of view, or by making it upgradeable (allowing to place the latest chip in a computer or washing machine).
More importantly, try to design the product in such a way people will feel attached to it. Many products are not thrown away because they are broken, but because owners got bored with them.
- Do not design products, but services
People do not always want a product. They want a solution for a certain problem. A service rather than a product can be the right solution.
- Use a minimum of material
Often you can reduce the amount of material by critically looking at dimensions, required strength and production techniques. It can even be beneficial to use materials that have a high environmental load per kilogram, if you can save weight. This is particularly true in transport, where less weight means less fuel consumption.
Do not only make your product recyclable, but use recycled materials as much as possible.If there is a demand for recycled materials the supply will follow certainly.
- Make your product recyclable
Only products that are disassembled easily and have a high enough yield will be chosen for recycling.
You can increase the chance that the product is recycled, by optimizing its design.
Very often decisions are based on common practice: "We have always done it this way and it has always worked well". You can make huge improvements in the environmental performance of products, with consequential cost savings, by simply asking the very obvious "Why?".
The guidelines above can easily help you to reduce the environmental burdens of a product by 30 to 50%. Real progress however can only be made if you are truly imaginative and think the unthinkable. A group of designers planning to do just that, have gathered in O2: an international network for sustainable design.
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