Reducing Environmental Impact
Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory
EPA’s View
(from Life-Cycle Design Guidance Manual)
Environmental requirements should minimize:
•
raw materials consumption
•
energy consumption
•
waste generation
•
health and safety risks
•
ecological degradation
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Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory
US Congressional View
A congressional view on the issue is reflected in (or at least influenced by) the report
"Green Products by Design – Choices for a Cleaner Environment" from the Office
of Technology Assessment (OTA-E-541), published in October 1992.
Green design
Waste prevention
Reduce: weight
toxicity
energy use
Extend: service life
Better materials management
Facilitate: remanufacturing
recycling
composting
energy recovery
Green design consists of two complementary goals. Design for waste prevention avoids the generation
of waste in the first place; design for better materials management facilitates the handling of products
at the end of their service life.
SOURCE: Office of Technology Assessment, 1992.
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Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory
Policy Implications
Based upon (inter)national studies, the Office of Technology
Assessment states:
• The environmental evaluation of a product or design should not
be based upon a single attribute, such as recyclability.
• The trend toward increasing product complexity seems certain
to make the environmental evaluation of products more difficult
and expensive in the future.
• Policies to encourage green design should be flexible enough to
accommodate the rapid pace of technological change and the
broad array of design choices and tradeoffs.
• The biggest environmental gains will likely come from policies
that provide incentives for greener production and consumption
systems, not just greener products
Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory
Guiding Principles according to OTA
Principle 1: Identify the root problem and define it clearly.
All the different perceptions on "the environmental problem" are not
helping solving the problem. The tradeoffs and interactions between the
problems have to be considered carefully.
Principle 2: Give designers maximum flexibility that is consistent with
solving the problem.
Strict regulations and rigid Federal mandates will have adverse effects.
Promote flexibility (in policies).
Principle 3:
Encourage a systems approach to green design.
Don't just focus on the component, but look at the big picture. For
example, German automakers are rethinking their entire "ecology" of car
production and disposal.
Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory
Society
7
X Manufacturers
6
One Manufacturer
Single Product Life Cycle
Scale of Organizational Concern
A Classification of Environmental Impact Reduction Efforts
X Products
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
Environmental Engineering
Pollution Prevention
Envir. Conscious D&M
Design for the Environment
Life Cycle Design
Industrial Ecology
Sustainable Development
Disposal
Use
Manufacturing
3,4,5
2
1
Manufacturing Use
Disposal
Product Life Cycle
Human
Lifetime
Civilization
Span
S cale of Temporal Concern
From:
Coulter, S., B.A. Bras and C. Foley (1995). A Lexicon of Green Engineering Terms, 10th International Conference on
Engineering Design (ICED 95), V. Hubka Ed., Praha, Czech Republic, Heurista, Zurich, Switzerland, pp. 1033-1039.
Bras, B., 1997, "Incorporating Environmental Issues in Product Realization," Industry and Environment, United
Nations UNEP/IE (invited contribution), Vol. 20, No. 1-2 (double issue), pp. 7-13, 1997.
Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory
Classification
• Three classes of approaches can be identified:
– those which are applied within a single product life-cycle and focus on
specific life-cycle stages,
– those that focus on a complete product life-cycle and cover all life-cycle
stages, and
– those that go beyond single product life-cycles.
Materials Extracted
From Biosphere
Manufacture
Material
Processing
Materials Mined
From Lithosphere
4
Product
Manufacture
3
Product Life-Cycle
Distribution
2
1
Use
Disposal
Demanufacture
Material
Demanufacture
Product
Demanufacture
Product
Take-Back
1= Direct reuse
Energy recovery
with incineration
Clean fuel
production via
pyrolysis
2= Remanufacture of reusable components
3= Reprocessing of recycled material
4= Monomer/raw material generation
Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory
Approaches Focusing on Specific Life-Cycle Stages
• Traditional environmental engineering is concerned with managing
the fate, transport, and control of contaminants in water supplies
and discharges, air emissions, and solid wastes (after pollutants
have been generated, or at the “end of the pipe”).
• Pollution prevention usually focuses on elimination of pollutants
from existing products and process technologies.
• With the exception of Design for Environment, environmentally
oriented Design for X approaches are all focused on a specific
aspect of a product’s life-cycle (e.g., Design for Disassembly, Design
for Recycling)
– A danger of focusing too much on specific DFX approaches (or specific aspects
of a product life-cycle in general) is that strong concentration on a single
environmental aspect may negatively affect other aspects and render the
product less environmental friendly as a whole.
Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory
Approaches Focusing on a Complete Product Life-Cycle
• In Design for Environment, Life-Cycle Design,
Environmentally Conscious Design and Manufacturing,
and Green Design, the scope of considerations, both in
terms of time and the environment, is the life cycle of
one product.
• All these approaches have similar goals and encourage a
holistic product view.
• However, it has already been recognized by many that
this may not be enough.
– For example, modern manufacturers often rely on multiple suppliers,
have multiple product lines, multiple facilities, often in multiple
countries.
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Systems Realization Laboratory
ECDM, DFE, Life-Cycle Design, etc.
• Environmentally Conscious Design & Manufacture (ECDM) and other
Design for Environment (DFE) efforts are largely motivated by a drive
to reduce the (negative) impact of engineering systems (products,
processes) on their environment.
• Environmental impact occurs throughout a product’s life cycle by
means of unwanted and unnecessary energy and material
consumptions and emissions.
• Design for Environment – “Systematic consideration of design
performance with respect to environmental, health, and safety objectives
over the full product and process life-cycle”
(Joseph Fiksel, “Design for Environment – Creating Eco-Efficient Products and Processes”, McGraw-Hill, 1996).
• Sustainable Development is considered the ultimate goal:
– Economic growth that is in harmony with the environment
Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory
Approaches Going Beyond Single Product Life-Cycles
• In industrial ecology, companies, organizations and
communities work together to minimize environmental
impact and use each others waste in an intelligent manner for
creating new products.
– Industrial ecology is not limited to a single product life cycle, but considers
the interactions of several product life cycles (of possibly different lengths)
over a larger time scale.
• Sustainable development is the broadest but also the least
well-defined approach in terms of tools and methods.
– The United Nations’ World Commission on Environment and Development in
their report Our Common Future, defines sustainable development as
“development that meets the needs of the present generation without
compromising the needs of future generations.”
– It is generally agreed that sustainable development requires at least pollution
prevention, consideration of life-cycle consequences of production, and an
approach that imitates natural or biological processes.
Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Realization Laboratory