A Quest for Sustainable Product Design

Irrational resource consumption together with §irresponsible environmental pollution resulting from §industry is the main causes of exceeding the global §carrying capacity and the depleting of natural §resources. The traditional end-of-pipe technologies §for environmental management are being questioned §due to the increased concern about potentially §significant environmental problems on global, §regional, and local scales. These approaches alone §are unlikely to provide satisfactory and cost-§effective protection of the ecosystem and human §health in the near future. Global industries are §confronted with the responsibility of producing §products in an environmentally friendly manner. They §are recognizing that implementing design for §environment in their product development process §provides opportunities both for improving the §environmental aspects of a product and for enhancing §the product s competitiveness. Through a better §understanding of the environmental aspect of the §product, this book propose a methodology to help §designers and product development teams for §developing systematic, profitable, and §environmentally sustainable product systems.