ECODESIGN FUNCTION AND FORM – CLASSIFICATION OF ECODESIGN TOOLS ACCORDING TO THEIR FUNCTIONAL ASPECTS

This article presents the first general conclusions of a project developed with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of the Comunidad Valenciana (Valencia Region, Spain)1. In the research it was discovered that the few companies which developed projects of Ecodesign did not obtain the expected results (environmental, economical, social, or combinations of these). In some cases Ecodesign did not yield any new products, in other cases the new product was less competitive in other aspects, frequently the demand (for a fully competitive new product) was lower than expected, etc. Nevertheless, in all cases, Ecodesign activities seemed to be correct and the effort should have been enough. An explanation for this could be as follows: maybe the Ecodesign tools employed were not adequate in function, in form, or in neither. That is to say, Ecodesign may be the proper tool for a problem, just as a screwdriver is adequate for unscrewing, but the applied Ecodesign toolset may not be appropriate for that particular problem, just as a Torx screwdriver is not suitable for a Slotted screw. Furthermore, another function and form should be analyzed: that of the agent that carries out the action, that is to say, the Ecodesign team. This collective function and form analysis of Ecodesign problems, the Ecodesign team and Ecodesign tools altogether has not been found in the consulted literature; most likely because it is an unnaturan analysis, given that Ecodesign problems and tools do not necessarily have a function or a form. However, as will be shown later, the results provided by this analysis are useful for understanding Ecodesign and planning its development.