International audienceThe practice of eco-design requires relating traditional design criteria to new environmental criteria. So far, few studies have investigated the nature and singularities of eco-design. This article provides some elements of response based upon the redesign of a consumer product (disposable razor). The study was conducted by three groups of experienced eco-designers using existing eco-design tools (SIMAPRO, ECOFAIRE, ECODESIGN PILOT). A protocol analysis with a three-level coding of transactions was carried out for this purpose. Two main findings are reported: (1) environmental assessment, solution finding and strategy definition are the activities which differentiate eco-design from design; (2) environmental initial assessment and strategy definition are more heavily influenced by eco-designers’ expertise than support from tools.Highlights► This study investigates the nature and singularities of eco-design compared to traditional design. ► A protocol analysis based on the observation of three experienced eco-designers' teams is conducted. ► Each team implements a different existing eco-design tool to redesign the same consumer product. ► Environmental assessment, solution finding and strategy definition appear to be specific to eco-design practice. ► Initial environmental assessment and strategy definition are heavily influenced by eco-designers' expertise
Design has a great role to play in sustainability. Interesting progresses has been performed within the last decades. Nevertheless, some issues of sustainability, and their impact on design, remains poorly studied. Specifically, when it comes to the field of local value creation, the literature in design is still limited. However, the Local Value Creation (LVC) thinking can be a great insight for designers to develop more ecoinnovative concepts, through new product design, new services and new business models. In order to go towards this direction, it is necessary to include new variables that are rarely considered in design processes such as the local workforce, sustainable local resources or the customization of the new product or service for local customers. This paper proposes a better understanding of the relation between eco-design approaches and LVC, and more precisely how current eco-design approaches consider this issue. To do so, a first part introduces the Local Value Creation concept and its challenges for sustainability. Then, a second part focuses on a literature review to understand how the LVC dimension is studied in the eco-design process. This will lead in a third section to concretely characterize how eco-design approaches and tools consider LCV issue. A last section proposes to identify potential contradiction between the LVC and the eco-design concept, in order to draw first outlines of a new eco-design paradigm with a Local Value Creation dimension.
The French network EcoSD (Eco-design of Sustainable Systems) has initiated collaborative research projects in order to foster collaborations between academic and industrial partners. Two projects concerning eco-innovation processes, methods and tools have been carried out between 2012 and 2014. This paper first offers a synthesis of the projects, and questions the new directions to feed research in eco-innovation for the forthcoming years. The first project concerned the perception of eco-innovation by companies. It aimed at defining the features and goals of eco-innovation compared to eco-design through a survey with 12 French industrial partners. Results confirm that eco-innovation still is an emerging topic and does not seem to be supported by any structured process. The second project made a focus on the stage of eco-evaluation and eco-selection of the most promising ideas. In order to understand the emergence of ideas with a high environmental potential, three groups of mixed academics and industrials were asked to test two methods involving mapping, selection, combination and environmental evaluation of ideas. Main results show that there is a large inter-group variability in the evaluation of the environmental potential of ideas. Lastly, three interlinked directions for research in eco-innovation are identified. The first direction deals with the eco-ideation phase, where appropriate stimulation mechanisms should be integrated to. The second direction deals with the environmental evaluation of ideas very early in the process. It is necessary to characterize the inputs and outputs from this phase, building a bridge towards a latter simplified environmental assessment. The last direction deals with the construction of an efficient eco-innovation process based on the two previous phases. The challenge is to reduce the gap between academia and industry, enabling companies to introduce an eco-innovation process into their current design process.
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