Development and integration of a simplified environmental assessment tool based on an environmental categorisation per range of products

For a growing number of firms, it is important that life-cycle assessments (LCAs) as well as the interpretation of the results obtained be carried out directly by the design teams. Unfortunately, the complexity of these two elements hinders the development of really eco-designed products. In this paper, we propose a generic approach allowing a company to develop a specific environmental assessment tool which enables designers to carry out simplified environmental assessments during the design process. To be more precise, the generic approach is based on the creation of two main features: impact functions to simplify the inherent complexity of LCAs and an environmental categorisation per product range to facilitate the use of environmental assessment results by the design team. This paper presents the development of such tool (named EcoT) in the context of automotive part suppliers and demonstrates its technical robustness on two case studies (dashboards and door panels). At the end of the paper, we discuss the usability and appropriability of the EcoT tool based on handling tests carried out by the company design team.

[1]  E. Hyvarinen,et al.  Integrating design for environment into the product design of Switching Platforms , 1996, Proceedings of the 1996 IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment. ISEE-1996.

[2]  Michael Ritthoff,et al.  Calculating MIPS : resource productivity of products and services , 2002 .

[3]  Joan Rieradevall,et al.  Using LCA to Assess Eco-design in the Automotive Sector: Case Study of a Polyolefinic Door Panel (12 pp) , 2006 .

[4]  Gerald Rebitzer,et al.  The role and implementation of LCA within life cycle management at Alcan , 2005 .

[5]  Yann Leroy,et al.  Développement d'une méthodologie de fiabilisation des prises de décisions environnementales dans le cadre d'analyses de cycle de vie basée sur l'analyse et la gestion des incertitudes sur les données d'inventaires , 2009 .

[6]  David Wallace,et al.  Product classification to support approximate life-cycle assessment of design concepts , 2006 .

[7]  Concepción Jiménez-González,et al.  Fast life cycle assessment of synthetic chemistry (FLASC™) tool , 2007 .

[8]  M. Hauschild,et al.  Methodology, tools and case studies in product development , 2000 .

[9]  Gabriela Benveniste,et al.  Simplified tools for global warming potential evaluation: when ‘good enough’ is best , 2010 .

[10]  Göran Finnveden,et al.  Evaluation of two simplified Life Cycle assessment methods , 2003 .

[11]  Günther Seliger,et al.  Economic and Environmental Assessment of Remanufacturing in the Automotive Industry , 2008 .

[12]  Rüdiger Hoffmann,et al.  Application of Life Cycle Assessment for the Environmental Certificate of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class (7 pp) , 2006 .

[13]  Joyce Smith Cooper,et al.  Life Cycle Energy Analysis as a Method for Material Selection , 2004 .

[15]  Liselotte Schebek,et al.  Volkswagen slimLCI: a procedure for streamlined inventory modelling within life cycle assessment of vehicles , 2008 .

[16]  Dominique Millet,et al.  Does the potential of the use of LCA match the design team needs , 2007 .

[17]  Jamie O'Hare,et al.  Eco-Innovation Tools for the Early Stages: An Industry-Based Investigation of Tool Customisation and Introduction , 2010 .

[18]  Thomas E. Graedel,et al.  Streamlined Life-Cycle Assessment , 1998 .

[19]  Belarmino Adenso-Díaz,et al.  Visualisation of LCA environmental impacts of electrical and electronic products using multidimensional scaling , 2009 .

[20]  Marc Janin,et al.  Démarche d'éco-conception en entreprise. Un enjeu : construire la cohérence entre outils et processus , 2000 .

[21]  Robert U. Ayres,et al.  Life cycle analysis: A critique , 1995 .

[22]  Henrik Wenzel,et al.  Integration of environmental aspects in product development: a stepwise procedure based on quantitative life cycle assessment , 2002 .

[23]  Stéphane Le Pochat,et al.  Intégration de l'éco-conception dans les PME : proposition d'une méthode d'appropriation de savoir-fraire pour la conception environnementale des produits , 2005 .

[24]  Matthias Finkbeiner,et al.  Life cycle assessment of lightweight and end-of-life scenarios for generic compact class passenger vehicles , 2004 .

[25]  Daniel Collado-Ruiz,et al.  Comparing LCA results out of competing products: developing reference ranges from a product family approach , 2010 .

[26]  Vicky Lofthouse,et al.  Ecodesign tools for designers: defining the requirements , 2006 .

[27]  Gregory A. Keoleian,et al.  Elucidating complex design and management tradeoffs through life cycle design: Air intake manifold demonstration project , 2003 .

[28]  Belarmino Adenso-Díaz,et al.  A fuzzy logic approach for the impact assessment in LCA , 2002 .

[29]  Mattias Lindahl,et al.  Engineering designers’ experience of design for environment methods and tools : Requirement definitions from an interview study , 2006 .

[30]  Michael C. Hout,et al.  Multidimensional Scaling , 2003, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology.

[31]  Michael Zwicky Hauschild,et al.  Design for Environment — Do We Get the Focus Right? , 2004 .

[32]  Herbert Birkhofer,et al.  Imparting Design Methods With the Strategies of Experts , 2007 .

[33]  Tomohiko Sakao,et al.  Coordinating Ecodesign Methods in Early Stages of Industrial Product Design , 2008 .

[34]  R. Bretz.  SETAC LCA Workgroup: Data availability and data quality , 1999 .

[35]  E. Eberle.  Methodik zur ganzheitlichen Bilanzierung im Automobilbau , 2000 .

[36]  Jessica Lagerstedt,et al.  EcoDesign and The Ten Golden Rules: generic advice for merging environmental aspects into product development , 2006 .

[37]  Améziane Aoussat,et al.  Integration of the environment in product design by a learning process: proposal for a piloting tool , 2003 .

[38]  Dominique Millet,et al.  Developing a Robust System of Environmental Tools (RSET) to Improve Ecodesign Practice in the Automotive Sector , 2009 .

[39]  Tatiana Reyes Carillo.  L'éco-conception dans les PME : les mécanismes du cheval de Troie méthodologique et du choix de trajectoires comme vecteurs d'intégration de l'environnement en conception , 2007 .