A framework for ecodesign: an interface between LCA and design process.

Abstract

Integrating environmental aspects in the design process is getting more and more covered by the actual scientific research. Based on various fields such as "eco-design", "Design for sustainability", "eco-innovation", several specific software and methods have been developed to tackle this issue. Our work focuses on product designer software and eco-designer software that already exist. This research analyses product design and eco-design—considering their respective complexity—in order to determine the main difficulties to systematically integrate environmental aspects in the design process. Our observations have led us to work on three elements: information, software, and collaboration between designers and LCA expert. The principal objective is to facilitate the interface between product design and eco-design by linking the requirements and performances of both domains. It seems therefore necessary to help the collaboration between various experts and thus to develop a digital interface enabling designers to exchange data and to use their appropriate related software. The aim of this paper is to argue the need of a digital tool interfacing the actual tools of the design process and of eco-design (among the related software such as CAD, CAx, PLM, and LCA). This “digital interface” is presented at the end of the paper and will be created next year.