Design for Environmental Practices

Resource consumption and mitigation strategies for product production which minimizes environmental and health impacts. These design for the environment (DfE) practices have been adapted from USEPA (2017), Spangenberg et al. (2010), Allen and Shonnard (2012), and Allenby (2012).

The following are the five main concepts that fall under the DfE umbrella.

1. Design for environmental processing and manufacturing: This ensures that raw material extraction (mining, drilling, etc.), processing (processing reusable materials, metal melting, etc.), and manufacturing are done using materials and processes which are not dangerous to the environment or to the employees working on said processes. This includes the minimization of waste and hazardous by‐products, air pollution, energy expenditure, and other factors.
2. Design for reliability (DFR): Is it reliable and safe given the range of environments in which the product is likely to be used, and how it will be used? For example, an electronic device used where there’s high risk of static electricity must be designed to avoid failure when exposed to static discharge. From a sustainable engineering perspective, DFR can extend product life, which is generally, although not always, a good thing. Note that in such cases sustainable engineering aligns environmental values with social values: customers like reliable and safe product, and the environment is benefitted by the reduction in waste while product assures reliability and safety.
3. Design for environmental packaging: This ensures that the materials used in packaging are environmentally friendly, which can be achieved through the reuse of shipping products, elimination of unnecessary paper and packaging products, efficient use of materials and space, use of recycled and/or recyclable materials.
4. Design for disposal or reuse: The end‐of‐life of a product is very important, because some products emit dangerous chemicals into the air, ground, and water after they are disposed of in a landfill. Planning for the reuse or refurbishing of a product will change the types of materials that would be used, how they could later be disassembled and reused, and the environmental impacts such materials have.
5. Design for energy efficiency: The design of products to reduce overall energy consumption throughout the product’s life.

LCA is employed to forecast the impacts of different (production) alternatives of the product in question, thus being able to choose the most environmentally friendly. A life‐cycle analysis can serve as a tool when determining the environmental impact of a product or process. Proper LCAs can help a designer compare several different products according to several categories, such as energy use, toxicity, acidification, CO₂ emissions, ozone depletion, resource depletion, and many others. By comparing different products, designers can make decisions about which environmental hazard to focus on in order to make the product more environmentally friendly.