Investigation into the role of core industrial designers in ecodesign projects

Abstract Current ecodesign theory supports the belief that industrial designers have a valuable role to play in ecodesign because of their position at the early stages of the product development process (Integrating Environmental Decisions into the Product Development Process: Part 1 The Early Stages. Ecodesign ‘99: First Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacture IEEE, Tokyo, Japan, February 1–3, 1999 (1999)). Despite this, current literature provides little evidence as to what this role should entail and whether this role is limited to industrial designers working at the strategic end of ecodesign. This paper provides empirical evidence to support the theory that there is a specific and valuable role for core industrial designers working at the operational end of ecodesign and presents the first detailed understanding of what this role involves.

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