Page 108 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

Principles of Design for Envir onment 87

System Perspective
DFE Principle 2. Evaluate the resource efficiency and
effectiveness of the overall system.
Every product, process, or service is part of a larger economic system, so try
to understand how different design choices can influence the overall environ-
mental performance of that system. No product can be deemed “sustain-
able” without reference to its broader context. As suggested in Figure
6.1, the enterprise and its stakeholders all depend on natural resources
for materials, energy, and ecosystem services (such as fresh water),
and they all deposit wastes into the environment. The challenge of
DFE is to consider the entire system and determine how the needs and
expectations of these stakeholders can be met in the most resource
efficient, effective, and environmentally benign manner. Therefore,
the system boundaries associated with DFE are broader than those in
the customary definition of a product “system.” Rather than merely
considering how the product is handled and used, one must consider
the entire value-added chain—the “upstream” processes involved in
producing the components, raw materials and energy to fabricate the
product, as well as the “downstream” processes involved in its dis-
tribution, use, and disposal. One must also consider how by-products
or releases from these processes may transmute, migrate, and affect
humans or the environment.
Eco-efficiency is a concept that many companies have adopted as a
way to capture the environmental performance of their overall pro-
duction systems. The World Business Council on Sustainable Devel-
opment (WBCSD), a global coalition of companies, first defined the
term in its 1992 manifesto, Changing Course [1]. WBCSD defines eco-
efficiency as “delivery of competitively priced goods and services
that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life while progressively
reducing environmental impacts of goods and resource intensity
throughout the entire life cycle.” In more concise terms, eco-efficiency
means generating more value with less adverse ecological impacts.
This concept is useful for several reasons:

• It combines economic value creation with environmental
resource protection
• It is essentially a resource productivity measure and, so, is
correlated with profitability
• It can be scaled to any system boundary, from a specific
process to the full life cycle
As stated in Chapter 4, eco-efficiency makes business sense.
Through eliminating waste and using resources more wisely, eco-
efficient companies are able to reduce costs and become more com-
petitive. Moreover, as environmental performance standards become