Design for Environment: A Guide to Sustainable Product Development, 2nd Edition

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Design for Environment: A Guide to Sustainable Product Development, 2nd Edition

Drawing on the experiences of dozens of major corporations, Design for Environment, 2nd Edition, offers a business rationale for developing sustainable products and processes, as well as a comprehensive toolkit for practicing Design for Environment in the context of product life-cycle management. Learn how environmental innovation creates business value, and helps companies to meet global energy and environmental challenges.

List Price $125.00
Website Price $112.50

Author: Joseph Fiksel
Format: Hardcover
Copyright: 2009
Pages: 430

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Description

An in-depth roadmap to sustainable product development.

Drawing on the experiences of dozens of major corporations, Design for Environment, 2nd Edition, offers a business rationale for developing sustainable products and processes, as well as a comprehensive toolkit for practicing Design for Environment in the context of product life-cycle management. Learn how environmental innovation creates business value, and helps companies to meet global energy and environmental challenges. Discover how to:

Practice integrated product development and concurrent engineering.
Select appropriate metrics to represent product life-cycle performance.
Maintain and apply a portfolio of systematic Design for Environment strategies.
Use analysis methods to evaluate design performance and trade-offs.
Apply systems thinking to reduce the supply chain environmental footprint.

This book features in-depth case studies of DFE applications by industry leaders such as:

Alcoa * American Electric Power * Caterpillar * Coca-Cola * ConAgra Foods * Dow Chemical Company * DuPont * Eli Lilly * Ford Motor Company * General Motors * Hewlett-Packard * Intel * JCPenney * Johnson & Johnson * Kimberly-Clark * McDonald's * Owens Corning * Patagonia * 3M Company * Xerox

From the Preface
Since the first edition of this book was published in 1996, the world has experienced dramatic political and economic changes, but my basic premise has stayed constant: environmental sustainability is compatible with economic growth - in fact, growth is a "natural" process. The alternative seems unacceptable, namely, stagnation and decline of human civilizations. Yet today the challenges of climate change and natural resource degradation are more daunting than ever. Personally, I remain an optimist, believing that humans are ingenious and resilient enough to overcome these challenges. However, we need to get going, sooner rather than later!

Although sustainability has become fashionable, it seems in danger of being trivialized. While recycling containers, eating local foods, and using energy-efficient light bulbs are positive steps, the magnitude of the problem is much larger. Our economic systems are generating a mountain of hidden wastes and emissions that are gradually threatening the ecological goods and services - energy, water, land, and biological resources - needed to support our lifestyles and enable worldwide prosperity. These environmental impacts are not just "issues" that can be easily corrected by making products "greener" and more "friendly." We will need to work collectively to reinvent the supply chain systems and infrastructure that form the basis of production and consumption.

This book describes an important part of the solution, a field of engineering that I have been involved with for many years, Design for Environment (DFE). The evolution of DFE has followed the same path as my own professional career - from analyzing environmental risks to preventing waste and pollution at the source, from complying with regulations to integrating environmental sustainability into enterprise strategy and decision making. You will find in these pages a business rationale for developing sustainable products and processes, as well as a comprehensive toolkit for corporations to practice DFE in the context of product life-cycle management. Perhaps most interesting, you will find a series of examples drawn from actual case histories of innovative companies that have applied these tools to their businesses. The book should be equally useful to managers, product developers, environmental specialists, government officials, and academics.

The global economic collapse of 2008 demonstrated that environmental sustainability does not guarantee short-term resilience, as many leading companies stumbled into crisis mode. Today, DFE is no longer just a question of social responsibility; it is essential to the revitalization and continuity of our global economy. Yesterday's technologies and business models will not be adequate to achieve the quantum changes that are needed. Therefore, creative design and breakthrough innovation are necessary for a rapid shift to an economically sustainable path. Regulatory intervention is inevitable, but governments absolutely need to collaborate with corporations in developing and implementing new policies. Principled and enlightened leadership from the private sector will be a critical factor in helping to address the complexities of global warming and resource depletion, not to mention poverty, corruption, and armed conflict. Companies are already moving beyond enterprise boundaries to establish industry coalitions and strategic partnerships with governments and environmental advocacy groups.

As I said above, DFE is only part of the solution, and the scope of this book is restricted deliberately in several respects:

The focus is on how environmental excellence creates business value, although we touch on other aspects of sustainability such as human capital and stakeholder engagement.
The focus is mainly on United States institutions and enterprises, although we describe broader international developments that have influenced U.S. practices.
The focus is on design engineering, although we discuss the roles of other functions, including R&D, marketing, logistics, communications, and information technology.
The focus is on the design of products and associated processes, although we mention the major strides that have occurred in the sustainable design of the built environment.

The ultimate purpose of DFE is to protect the capacity for humans and other organisms to flourish together on Earth. We now recognize that, because of unsustainable industrial patterns, natural systems may be destabilized and quality of life for future generations may be endangered. Fortunately, Nature is extremely resilient, and living systems can adapt to change. If we are agile enough, then DFE can become a cornerstone of our own successful adaptation strategy.
- Joseph Fiksel

About the Author
Dr. Joseph Fiksel is Executive Director of the Center for Resilience at The Ohio State University and Principal and Co-Founder of the consulting firm Economics LLC. He is a recognized authority on sustainable business practices, with over 25 years of research and consulting experience for multi-national companies, government agencies, and consortia such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. A native of Montreal, Dr. Fiksel began his career at DuPont of Canada, and subsequently was Director of Decision and Risk Management at Arthur D. Little, Inc., and Vice President for Life Cycle Management at Battelle. He has published over 70 refereed articles and several books, and is a frequent invited speaker at professional conferences. Dr. Fiksel holds a B.Sc. from M.I.T., an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University and an advanced degree from La Sorbonne.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction. Part 1. Answering the Call: The Green Movement. Chapter 2: Motivating Forces. Chapter 3: External Drivers: The Voice of Society. Chapter 4: Business Value Drivers. Part 2: Charting the Course: The Art and Science of Design for Environment. Chapter 5: Managing Environmental Innovation. Chapter 6: Principles of Design for Environment. Chapter 7: Performance Indicators and Metrics. Chapter 8: Design Rules and Guidelines. Chapter 9: Analysis Methods for Design Decisions. Chapter 10: Product Life Cycle Management. Part 3: Walking the Talk: The Real-World Practice of Design for Environment. Chapter 11: Electronic Equipment Industries. Chapter 12: Transportation Industries. Chapter 13: Chemical Industries. Chapter 14: Medical and Pharmaceutical Industries. Chapter 15: Food and Beverage Industries. Chapter 16: Consumer Products Industries. Chapter 17: Materials Production Industries. Chapter 18: Energy Production Industries. Chapter 19: Service Industries. Part 4: Conclusion: The Road Ahead. Chapter 20: Sustainability and Resilience. Chapter 21: Summary. Glossary. Index.