The Challenges Of Environmentally Conscious Design

The design process is understood to be an area of great opportunity for companies to implement new ideas and practices. With the first 20% of the design process fixing up to 80% of a product’s attributes, this is not surprising. Until recently we have primarily seen environmental pressures dealt with reactively by manufacturing companies who have been forced to “clean up” their product and their manufacturing processes and attempt to recycle their products at the end of their useful lives. However, a key opportunity for product manufacturers to proactively reduce environmental impact is in the design process. Industry is responding to this opportunity by seeking tools and methods to support Environmentally Conscious Design (ECD), with some companies already performing ECD, albeit with crude tools.