Page 151 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

130 Cha pte r Ei g h t

Ironically, even when the long-term economics are clearly favor-
able, as in the case of compact fluorescent light bulbs, some con-
sumers may still behave irrationally and opt for a lower-priced,
less cost-effective product. This has long been a challenge of “green
marketing”—if consumers fail to accept the value proposition for a
higher-performance product, then companies will continue to manu-
facture cheaper products that are quickly discarded.
Increased longevity implies a need for greater durability, which
may require denser materials and stronger fastening methods. Interest-
ingly, these objectives conflict with the design criteria used in design-
ing for disassembly, separability, and waste reduction. You can’t have
it both ways, and designers need to grapple with the life-cycle cost and
environmental trade-offs between durability and recoverability.
Apart from life extension for the product as a whole, another way
to achieve longevity is to extend the life of product components.
There are at several ways to accomplish this:
• Design upgradable components—for example, desktop com-
puter graphic cards can easily be upgraded, as technological
capabilities improve.
• Design a reusable platform—for example, a less wasteful
alternative to disposable insulin pens for diabetics is a refill-
able pen which accepts cartridges, similar to a fountain pen.
Example: In 2002 General Motors introduced a radical concept car
called the AUTOnomy, built around a fuel cell system with drive-by-
wire functionality, which allows steering, braking, and other vehicle
systems to be controlled electronically instead of mechanically (see
Figure 8.4). The vehicle body connects to the “skateboard” chassis by
means of a “docking port,” making the body lighter and freeing it
from traditional design constraints. This can lead to the development
of customized bodies that are easy to switch in and out of the basic
platform. However, the concept was never commercialized.
• Improve serviceability and repairability—reducing the cost
and difficulty of service and repair, including do-it-yourself
repair, can extend the useful life of a product.

A.2 Design for Source Reduction
Source reduction is routinely practiced as the most desirable alterna-
tive in the pollution prevention hierarchy. Reducing the mass of a
product is the surest and most direct way to achieve waste reduction
and usually results in lower life-cycle costs as well. In many indus-
tries, notably electronics, the mass of products has been steadily
decreasing due to consumer demand and technological advances. In
other industries, such as food and beverages, the mass of the product
itself is inflexible, and ingenious methods must be found to reduce
the mass of containers and packaging. The following is a list of guide-
lines representing the most common source reduction practices: