Product design

Product designers are critical in the life cycle management process because it is at the design stage when the environmental impact across all stages of the product will largely be determined. As such, improved product design can generate improved outcomes across the life cycle.

Profile
Designing and redesigning products requires consideration of many factors, including quality, performance, user requirements, legal requirements, safety, market appeal, manufacturability, cost and environmental implications. Since it is rarely possible to optimise all of these factors in a single design, the designer must make trade-offs, all the while looking for 'win-win' outcomes which deliver multiple benefits with one design innovation.

Increasingly, product design involves multidisciplinary teams, and is a highly interactive process. Key design activities include initial concept development, consultation with marketing and technical/production staff, selection of design parameters, prototype development, testing and redesign.

Current Practice
Consideration is often given to environmental issues during the design process, but usually in response to regulatory requirements or high-profile issues (e.g. solid waste). Specific environmental attributes, such as recyclability, may be required. In many cases, product designers focus primarily on the production stage of the life cycle, and to some extent on product use and disposal. Because other life cycle stages are often not considered, opportunities to develop more environmentally sound products may be missed.

Moving Towards a Life Cycle Approach
Life cycle thinking can be introduced into all design activities. The following points can help guide product design toward an LCM approach.

• Think in terms of product function. It sometimes pays to return to the basics. What is the service your product provides? There may be alternative ways of providing that service that are more efficient than any improvements that might be achieved through simple product redesign, or shifting to service provision instead.
• Focus on product performance. Better performance can often reduce environmental burdens as well as improve marketability. Consider changes in design or formulation that might allow performance expectations to be met with lower quantities of product per use, or with lower consumption of energy, water or material resources.
• Extend the service life of your product. Longer lasting products also mean less material consumption and waste generation per use. Service life may be extended by using more durable materials and components, and by designing the product for ease of maintenance and upgrading.
• Consider material substitution and reformulation. Work with your suppliers to find alternative materials that both reduce life cycle impacts and provide a market advantage. Also, design your product to facilitate remanufacture, reuse or recycling at the end of the product's useful life.

Applying the LCM Framework to Product Design

THINK:
Reflect on the possible life cycle implications of the product being designed. A life cycle map and a life cycle design checklist can help - Life Cycle Management Tools.

ASK:
Where necessary, ask colleagues, suppliers, customers and other experts for additional information that is not readily available. Again, the life cycle map and design checklist can guide this activity.

ASSESS:
Where there are major environmental concerns, or where design trade-offs are very difficult, consider assessing the life cycle issues in more detail, by means of a detailed life cycle review or assessment.

ACT:
In all cases, the goal is to act to minimise life cycle environmental impacts through improved product design.

Related Strategies
An LCM approach allows designers to focus their efforts toward addressing the key environmental concerns in the product life cycle - not just the environmental concerns associated with the immediate operations (which may or may not be significant in consideration of the entire life cycle). Common terms for the improvement of a product's environmental performance through design or re-design include design for the environment (DFE), green design, design for recyclability and design for disassembly.