Page 393 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

368 Cha pte r T w e n t y -O ne

Chapter 3: External Drivers: The Voice of Society. Companies
have been motivated to embrace sustainability principles because
of a number of external driving forces. These include the growing
“green” consciousness among customers and many other stake-
holder groups; the emergence of carbon management as a key
aspect of corporate strategy; enactment of a number of environ-
mental directives by the European Union, as well as partnership
initiatives by the U.S. government; establishment of international
standards for environmental management systems; proliferation
of sustainability rating schemes, eco-labeling programs, and vol-
untary codes and principles; and the blossoming of relationships
between businesses and environmental advocacy groups.
Chapter 4: Business Value Drivers. Apart from their basic val-
ues and beliefs, companies have identified key drivers of busi-
ness value that justify the adoption of corporate citizenship,
sustainability, and associated business practices such as DFE. As
a result, environmental strategy has moved be yond compliance

and risk management toward pollution prevention, product
stewardship, and eventually supply chain sustainability. There
are several different pathways whereby environmental excellence
creates shareholder value—tangible financial returns, enhance-
ment of intangible assets such as reputation and human capital,
and delivering value to stakeholders, which indirectly strengthens
intangible assets.

Part 2 Charting the Course: The Art and Science of
Design for Environment
Chapter 5: Managing Environmental Innovation. Responding
to market expectations, many companies have incorporated DFE
practices into their innovation processes. DFE should be viewed
as a standard component of integrated product development
and concurrent engineering. Successful implementation of DFE

within a product development organi zation re quires appropri-

ate communications, enabling tools, and re ward systems. There
are three main elements of DFE practice that need to be estab-
lished—performance indicators and metrics, design rules and
guidelines, and analysis methods. It is important to understand
the full spectrum of product life-cycle concerns, including stake-
holder perceptions.
Chapter 6: Principles of Design for Environment. The follow-
ing are seven basic principles of DFE:
1. Embed life-cycle thinking into the product development

process.