Ecodesign: A powerful tool for sustainable development

Sustainable and responsible business are no longer merely buzzwords or a concern only for large corporations looking to improve their reputation or win-over more customers, it has become crucial to the strategy of any size company who strives to remain competitive in this complex market environment.

Increasingly, governments are applying pressures or implementing regulations and clients are actively seeking products with some consideration for the environment. These market forces inevitably call for manufacturers to consider their impact on the environment, a key facet of sustainable development (interconnection of economy, environment and society), and those who address these concerns will have an edge over those who don’t. Ecodesign constitutes a powerful tool for sustainable development. 

What is ecodesign?

In a nut shell, it consists of integrating environmental aspects at the product or service conception stage with the aim of reducing its overall negative impact on the environment. This encompasses analyzing the entire product or service life cycle, from raw materials to production, transport, use, and disposal in order to reduce its environmental footprint while keeping the same efficiency and utility, or increasing its efficiency and utility while not increasing its footprint. This approach is referred to as the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Ecodesign also refers to other activities such as rethinking or redesigning existing products with reduced amount of raw materials used, waste or energy required.

Getting started and why the conception stage is critical  

LCA is the main analytical tool to evaluate ecodesign concepts. It examines inputs (e.g. materials, resources, energy) and outputs (e.g. emissions to air and water, waste) at every stage in a product’s lifecycle to then quantify its environmental impacts. This framework has been standardized within the International Organization for Standardizations’ series ISO 14040.

As a first step in applying ecodesign principles, objectives pursued for the product or service need to be defined. Are we just looking to improve an existing product? Do we want to create a brand new, “greener” product line? Or are we looking to introduce ecodesign for all our product development? Ecodesign is considered from the get go when thinking of product development or adaption, just as with usual requirements such as quality level, durability, costs, functionality and other product specifications. According to the Institut de développement de produits (IDP), 80% of a product’s environmental impacts are determined at the conception stage.

The next step uses the LCA tool to analyze the product life cycle and system, from cradle-to-grave, with the goal of pin pointing the areas where some improvements can be made. Some main environmental aspects to analyze throughout this exercise are resource consumption and emission to air, water and ground (greenhouse gases, toxic elements, waste management). Using established databases, these “hot spots” can be quantified in terms of environmental impact and then different alternatives can be proposed along the cycle in an effort to reduce overall environmental footprint. Since the LCA assessment is truly a global, integrated approach, it is usually better performed by a multidisciplinary team, one which includes everyone involved in a stage of the product’s life cycle. Designers, engineers, procurement and QA professionals, marketing and operations as well as suppliers can all contribute and enrich this process.