Categorisation of eco design tools

- Categorise eco design tools by impacting on the product life span and areas of effectiveness

- Introduction to the adopted eco design tools in this research

As can be seen in figure 3.12, there are various eco design tools, which have different roles and impact on differing product lifespan areas such as production, usage, disposal and recycling. The features of design approaches can also distinguish those eco design tools to functional, aesthetical, technical and structural approaches.

Figure 3.12 shows the current existing eco design tools and effectiveness during the product lifespan. These were mostly developed in the engineering area and examples applied to industrial design for mass production, were very difficult historically. However large sized companies, particularly Nokia, Sony and Samsung have only used quantitative eco evaluation tools such as LCA to prove their products for eco product certification. Figure 3.12 presents 35 eco design (or ideation) tools; 7 from production, 16 from usage, 5 from disposal and 7 from recycling.

Those tools have different features and characteristics and effectiveness to the environment. At the production level, most tools approached structurally and technically because major issues were focused on considering the environmentally friendly production processes, finding better effects for the material consumptions and reducing emission and manufacturing process times. This level of process included shipping and collecting raw resource, which was a starting point for the quantitative evaluation. Simplified production processes and the construction of low emissions processes may be the most effective solution at this level, however changing manufacturing process or re-considering management systems made it very difficult to solve design issues and also demanded high expert knowledge, cost and time.

Ten eco design tools use technological approaches in the current research for usage levels and due to high engineers usage, and high tech developers rather than designers’ usage, marketers and other areas have focused on developing and inventing alternative energy, solar power and reducing energy consumption. However Anti-fashion and Anti-obsolesce, approached only aesthetic issues and were applied to extend customers’ emotional fulfillment.

Some of methods can be exampled such as high end brand jean has been used natural material and raw material and this can be driven by Raw material method. According to this example, eco design approaches can be impacted to marketing, advertisement, production processing and shifting design.

There are two major concerns; cost saving and increasing disposal efficiency through reduced disposal processes and raising recycling rates and reusable components, by considering alternative materials and the unification of assembly at disposal level. Most tools at disposal level influenced the recycling level, which predominantly cannot work alone. However, the use of recyclable materials and consideration of reusable structures in the design perspective demands many diverse systems such as recycled material collecting systems, social awareness and national recycling facilities.

Whilst there are numerous design methods which support eco-design, little cross- comparison has been undertaken, particularly comparative benefits in specific sectors. Approaches can be categorised broadly into 8 types: (i) Material reduction (including zero-waste production); (ii) Energy saving; (iii) Anti-fashion; (iv) Durability; (v) DFD (Design for Disposal/Disassembly); (vi) Rationalisation (reduced functionality and design for need); (vii) Upgradeability; (viii) Recycling.

Starting with product planning, there are Anti-obsolescence, Anti-fashion, and ‘Design for Need’ approaches, which all focus on the fulfilment of consumer purchase demands. Anti-obsolescence and Anti-fashion stimulate consumer’s aesthetic demands, maintaining the consumer’s concern for the product. In the case of the ‘Design for Need’ method, this is focused on the exclusion of unnecessary functions within the product as early as possible, to achieve maximum product lifespan extension, reduction in material and energy usage, and maximising usability. This method may build the relationship between both user and product, extending the product lifespan and linking this to the concept of ‘sustainable design’. (Conversely, trends towards product and media convergence (see later) make a case for increased functionality, on the basis that reduced product duplication limits the total range of artefacts produced).

Other methods - such as “cold construction/manufacturing”, “zero-waste production”, “low-energy manufacturing and assembly” and “innovation within traditional low- impact technologies” - are related directly to manufacturing rather than design. To achieve this, designers have to engage with manufacturers at the planning stage, long before production; “single or non-material” methods are also included in this category. For energy saving and resource reduction during product usage, a range of methods are available, including ‘Reduced energy use’, ‘Low-embodied energy’, ‘Energy conservation’, ‘Energy efficiency’, ‘Low voltage’, ‘Solar powered’, ‘Hybrid power’, ‘Rechargeable’, ‘Integrated energy control systems’, ‘Renewable power’ and ‘Energy label standards’. In enforcing the Kyoto protocol, energy savings and CO2 reductions discharge can be traded for increased quotas for goods, thereby promoting this as a key environmental technology for future trade advantage.

The methods of Sustainable Design, Design for (ease of) Maintenance, Durability, and Upgradeability and Ease of repair/reparability are used for extending product lifespan. These approaches can be subdivided into three categories, which are: (i) the extension of product lifespan by reinforcing durability, (ii) the upgrading or tuning of a product, and lastly, (iii) the repair of a product. These methods have the same aim, extending product lifespan, but the significant weak points of two of the methods are their consideration of physical lifespan only. In contrast, upgradeability considers the affection for the product, maximises use-ability, and aesthetic and functional extension.

The environmentally friendly methods of DfD and lightweight construction offer effective product disposal, whereas product recycling (where the artefact is not broken down into its constituent parts) is covered by Recycling, Design for Recyclability (DfR), object reuse, material reuse, and encouraging recycling approaches. These methods can be categorised as product recycling and the use of recycled resources.

A case study approach had originally been planned, which sought to undertake a series of semi-structured interviews with senior management and designers within two Korean electronics large sized companies. These were to be supported by a series of ethnographic studies, shadowing the use of eco-design tools within the design department at each organisation.

These interviews and research implementations had illustrated the gab between advertisement and current their implementations and also demonstrated company’s ranges of investments for environmental friendly product development. This approach deducted different understanding rates of 8 eco design methods in different level of interview targets and found the possibilities for adopting these methods to product development.

Through this interview, the research could provide background data for establishing the research directions and realistic actions, policy and ideas in the industry field regarding sustainability.

3.2.4 Summary

This chapter demonstrated each definition, type and feature of eco design methods and standards of categorize; furthermore, particularly for this research, this also shows evaluation means way to select the methods and current barriers and potential opportunities of eco design methods.

The literature review showed current various eco design method however it is difficult to find previous examples, where eco design methods and applied to product design and development in the business field. Moreover there is a serious deficiency in data in the design area compared with other areas such as engineering and marketing during researching literature review.

Eco design methods can be categorized by the product lifespan (production, usage, disposal and recycle) integrated with the different approaches of each eco design method as section 3.2.4. Through this grouping, designers can find and adopt the appropriate eco design method, which can correspond and support with developing target products, for example Design for Disassembly (DfD) and Reduced material methods are more effecting for products, which require heavier manufacturing processes and components. However, these effective methods pose serious barriers to designers that require quantitative evaluation data.

In the Green Round era, which environmental consideration has to connect to economic benefit quantitative eco evaluation methods can generate comparable data in various environmental impacts and these illustrate rates of environmental impact within the different environmental impact categories.

The Eco Compass visually represents quantitative data (such as LCA data) to compare different sectors. Particularly provide effective resources to industrial designers and marketers by showing the strong and weak points in different environmental factors.

This chapter showed definitions and categorizing of each eco design method and also demonstrated and selected appropriate methods for the research. Based on the background, the research will implement pilot studies & evaluations in chapter 6,7 &8.

Summary of chapter 3

 Each eco design method have different contexts and can be grouped in

product lifespan (production, usage, disposal and recycling) and different approaches

 Eco strategy wheel method highlights the strengths and weakness by reflecting the appropriates eco design methods for the designers and ranked 8 eco design methods from figure 3.12

 Historically eco design has gaps between industries and business however since 2000, as RoHS, WEEE and Kyoto protocol came out, the eco design area has been changed to more practical and detailed

 To adopt eco design methods, it needs to have designer’s perspective,

which is suitable process and making similar results and also reflected outside factors such as market shifting and technical achievement