1. Environment and Business, VII
The European Directive for Ecodesign of Energy Using Products (EuP), environmental evaluation
Prof. Dr. Ir. Ab Stevels
Chair of Applied EcoDesign
Design for Sustainability
Dept. Design Engineering, School of Industrial Design
Delft University of Technology

2. Outline What is EuP? What can EcoDesign deliver?
Forms of Environmental Assessment?
An Industrial Approach of EuP

3. What is EuP?
Wants producers to consider the total life cycle for (Eco)Design of their products
Requires to make a “life cycle analysis”/environmental profile
Design improvements have to be balanced with economic, technological, user, and societal issues
Emphasis on energy saving, gives other design rules as well
EuP accepted by the EU in 2005, to be transposed into national Law as of Aug 2007

4. In the design rules, the history of EuP not fully eliminated
Old EEE
EuP
Lowering environmental load
Balance with other factors
EcoDesign will do the trick
It is only one of four avenues
Emphasis on materials and recycling
Emphasis on energy
Emissions
Emissions and resources?

5. Obligation to make environmental profiles
Goal : making of an improvement agenda
The Van Holsteyn and Kemna method and other kinds of LCA are promoted (holistic view first)
Use of physical quantities (benchmarking) seems to be allowed (action agenda first)

6. Implementing measures
There will be specific implementation measures for product categories, depending on
Sales volume
Absolute energy comparison
Improvement potential
Currently, studies are carried out to support implementation measures in 2010

7. Consequence of EuP
Organize your EcoDesign procedure (ISO technical report gives useful clues how to do this).
Future ISO will address the managerial and management issues in EcoDesign
Organize the environmental creativity in your organization
Have tools available to support the processes

8. Pluses and minuses - + 1 2 3 4 5
Obligation to make an environmental analysis of the product (families)
Addressing the complete lifecycle
Physical quantities to characterize products
Balancing of environmental, economic, technical, functional & other aspects
Promotion of systematic review of new technology and new physics for functionality realization 1 2 3 4
Focus on EcoDesign could weaken other conditions for success (EcoDesign integration, roadmaps, performance measurement, management & organization)
Confusing, thus expensive, manufacturer requirements (not leading to an action agenda); a lot of documentation required for internal design control
Too much emphasis on “eco”, not enough on value
Little on enforcement & traceability

9. What can EcoDesign deliver?
Still a lot! (see previous presentations)
Limitation of EcoDesign is by physics required to realize a certain functionality
(Most environmental load caused by physics, not by wrong decisions in the early design phase)
Technology, system organization and regulatory intervention can be more effective

10. Accuracy of environmental assessment
Full LCA
Streamlined LCA/ Eco-indicators
Sophistication
/ Accuracy Environmental benchmarking
Common sense

11. Time consumption of env. assessment
Full LCA
Streamlined LCA/ Eco-indicators
Execution time
Environmental benchmarking
Common sense

12. Methods
Common sense
Environmental benchmarking (see previous presentations)
Full Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Basics
Methods
Examples
Streamlined/ screening LCA: Eco-indicators and Ecoscan

13. Common sense Always use your brains Scope
All or limited number of focal area’s
All or limited number of life cycle stages
Operation
Just count and compare physical data
Results
(Numerical) data on a limited number of environmental items
Analysis of results
Assists in making specifications
Derive improvement options for design
Basis for roadmaps or further environmental research
Basis for environmental communications
Always use your brains

14. Full Lifecycle Assessment
Abbreviated LCA including VHK
Eco-indicators
Full LCA according to ISO standards
All have the same principles ,issues and limitations!

15. Principles Life cycle perspective
Holistic approach, weighting all possible environmental problems
Fast development and attention within the scientific community and within consulting companies
Quantifying scientific green, not consumer green or government green

16. Structure of LCA Phase Subject Result LCI: Life Cycle Inventory
1. Goal and scope definition
2. Inventarisation
3. Classification and normalisation
4. Evaluation
Weighting effects
Environmental effects
Environmental impacts
Product/ process
Functional unit
Impact table
Environmental profile
Single indicator
LCIA: Life Cycle Impact Assessment (different methods)

17. Example: Inventarisation: single process
Impact of per processes to be appointed to one f.u.
Economic processes
 Goods
 Services
 Materials
 Energy
 Waste
 Emissions
 Radiation
 Noise
Heat
Goods 
Services 
Materials 
Energy
Waste
Raw materials Energy 
Space
Streams from economy
Streams to environment
Streams from environment
Streams to economy

18. Example: Inventarisation: Process Tree
Impact of all of these processes to be appointed to one f.u.
Design and prototyping
Raw material extraction
System border
Transport
Production
Cut-off
System border
Test Drive
Use phase
Gasoline
Energy
Collision/ wear-out
Transport to Recycler
Recycling

19. Methodological Problems with LCA
LCA results disclosed to the public, in which a weighting step is applied, are not ISO compliant!!!
A lot of focus on new methodologies, while in the mean time the databases are the problem.
Data uncertainty is usually very high, the same counts for model uncertainty.
Subjective weighting in order to get single scores cannot be avoided.
Defining system borders is very difficult.

20. Discussion Eco-Indicators, I
Scope:
mainly energy, materials, packaging, transport, of all life cycle stages
Database based on
Pre-cooked LCA procedure:
systems definition
inventory
classification
normalization (environmental effect of average citizen)
weighting system

21. Discussion Eco-Indicators, II
Operation
specify materials type, weight
specify components and components manufacturing
specify subassemblies and subassemblies manufacturing
calculate environmental impacts
Result
One figure score for environmental impact
Analyse ways and means to bring eco-indicator down
Users
Designers: design improvements
Managers: benchmarking (of similar products)
Not fit for policies (government green and green perceptions not considered)

22. Ecological profiles, an industrial approach
Address environmental issues which you can influence yourself (internal issues)
Get facts and organize these according to a chosen benchmark procedure
Use information to generate and prioritize design actions against external issues
Check feasibility
Implement in Eco(Design) specifications and targets

23. Creativity in Environmental Improvement
Start separately, tune in to Product Creation
Process:
Do Environmental Benchmarks
Environmental brainstorm, EcoDesign matrix, Prioritized Green Options
Check feasibilities
Consolidate in Product Specification
Do concurrent detailed design

24. Comparison of Industrial and EuP EcoDesign Approaches, 1
Item
Industrial
EuP
Work
On issues you can influence yourself through design
Distribution of work among stakeholders
Emphasis
On opportunities
(technical value chain)
On drivers
(legislation)
Position in Product Creation
Integration of environment into product creation
Separate green products
Ambition
Do it better than before or than the competition
(relative)
Sustainability
(absolute)

25. Comparison of Industrial and EuP EcoDesign Approaches, 2
Item
Industrial
EuP
Goal
Create (green) value
Lower environmental load
Data collection I
Data collection II
Data collection III
In physical quantities
(W, kg, sec, …)
Benchmarking (comparison)
Used for setting targets
In environmental analysis
Input – output analysis
Used for environmental analysis
Approach
Priority setting
Holistic perspective
Implementation
/ Execution
Just do it (operations)
Through tools
Communication
of results
Emphasis of benefits for the consumer / society
Emphasis of benefits for the environment

26. The Good and Bad News It will be possible to serve the intent of EuP
Rigid enforcement of current EuP texts will create confusion
Substantial progress with respect to the Recycling (WEEE) and Substances (RoHS) Directives
Too theoretic/academic, no contribution to action agenda