2.1 Resource and reserves 

• Renewable resources are natural sources that can replenish themselves over time. These may include forms of energy or commodities such as wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, and tidal energy.

  • Some renewable resources, like wind and solar power, are considered inexhaustible, while others, such as timber, require careful management to maintain their sustainability.

  • Renewable resources are typically characterized by lower carbon emissions and minimal impact from human activities. However, the implementation of renewable resources often involves higher costs compared to non-renewable alternatives.

• Non-renewable resources, also referred to as finite resources, are those that cannot renew themselves at a sufficient rate to support sustainable economic extraction.

  • Examples of non-renewable resources include coal, petroleum, natural gas, fossil fuels, minerals, ores, timber, and nuclear energy. These resources exist in fixed and limited quantities, rendering them exhaustible.

  • Non-renewable resources generally produce higher carbon emissions but are more cost-effective to implement compared to renewable resources.

• Reserves denote the quantities of a natural resource that have been identified and quantified in terms of quality and availability.

  • Projections of energy reserves are typically based on geological and engineering data. However, certain reserves may be currently inaccessible due to economic or technical constraints, as is the case with the extraction of oil sands, which remains economically unviable under current market conditions.

• Renewability pertains to the ability of a resource to replenish itself over time or to exist in an inexhaustible supply.

  • Examples of renewable resources include timber from trees and fresh drinking water. The conservation of these resources and the advancement of technologies to enhance energy efficiency are essential to ensuring long-term sustainability.

• The impact of development on the environment is a critical consideration, particularly when multinational corporations extract resources from various countries or regions.

  • Such activities can have profound social, ethical, and environmental implications for local populations.

• One of the foremost challenges of the 21st century for designers is the development of renewable and sustainable resources. This challenge involves navigating the economic and political significance of material and land resources while considering factors such as initial set-up costs, conversion efficiency, sustainability of supply, social impact, environmental consequences, and the decommissioning process.

2.2 Waste mitigation strategies 

Waste Mitigation Strategies

• The Industrial Age, marked by an abundance of resources and raw materials, led to the development of a throwaway society. As resources diminish and the impact of waste becomes increasingly apparent, sustainability has emerged as a critical focus for designers. This shift is driven by the realization that a large amount of material waste ends up in landfills, which could otherwise be utilized as resources. Waste mitigation strategies aim to reduce or eliminate materials directed to landfills through various approaches, including prevention, monitoring, and innovative handling of waste.

Strategies for Waste Reduction

• Re-use: Involves the use of the same product in the same or different context. For example, reusing water bottles, plastic bags, glass bottles, and clothes helps to extend the lifecycle of these items and reduce waste.

• Repair: Focuses on the reconstruction or renewal of any part of an existing structure or device. By mending or servicing faulty equipment, the lifecycle of products such as washing machines, light bulbs, or car parts can be extended, reducing the need for replacement and minimizing waste.

• Re-engineering: Involves redesigning components or products to enhance their characteristics or performance, such as speed and energy consumption. A common example is in Formula 1 cars, where aerodynamics are improved, or lighter new materials are used to reduce waste and increase efficiency.

• Recycle: Refers to the process of using materials from obsolete products to create new ones. Examples include recycling glass, paper, aluminum cans, thermoplastics, and newspapers.

• Recondition: Entails rebuilding a product so that it is in an "as new" condition. This approach is typically applied to items such as car engines and tires, where components are refurbished to extend their use.

• Dematerialization: Focuses on reducing the quantities of materials required to achieve the same functionality, essentially doing more with less. This involves product efficiency improvements by saving, reusing, or recycling materials and products. Examples include reducing the size of electronic devices or replacing physical products with digital versions, like using emails instead of paper or web pages instead of brochures.

Methodologies for Waste Reduction

Waste management encompasses strategies for dealing with landfill waste, incineration, and pollution, including noise and air pollution. Key methodologies include:

• Development of New Materials and Technologies: This involves the creation of new biofuels, self-decomposing materials, and buildings made from recyclable materials, alongside reconditioning products and building products with a "cradle to cradle" life cycle approach.

• Legislation and Consumer Awareness: Encouraging manufacturers and consumers to be more conscious of pollutants and waste, with the support of laws and regulations such as the "Clean Air Act" and "Take Back" programs. Eco-labeling schemes and standards also play a significant role in driving sustainable practices.

• ISO Standards: The adoption of ISO 14000 standards helps organizations address environmental issues globally, establishing a network of national standards that tackle waste management and sustainability challenges.

Product Recovery Strategies

• Recycling: Involves using materials from obsolete products to create new ones, reducing the need for virgin resources.

• Raw Material Recovery: Entails separating components of a product to recover parts and materials for reuse.

• WEEE Recovery: Deals with the recovery of materials and components from electrical products that pose environmental and health hazards if not properly managed.

• Energy Recovery: Converts waste into energy, either through waste-to-energy (WtE) or energy-from-waste (EfW) processes. This includes generating electricity, heat, or fuel from the combustion of waste materials.

• Standard Parts at the End of Product Life: Focuses on reducing material and energy use by limiting environmental impact throughout a product’s lifecycle. This includes using standardized parts that can be recycled or repurposed at the end of a product’s life.

Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)

• Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is a technique used to assess the environmental impact of a product at every stage, from raw material extraction through manufacturing, distribution, use, repair, maintenance, and disposal or recycling.

Circular Economy

• The circular economy promotes the use of waste as a resource within a closed-loop system, where materials are kept in use for as long as possible. This approach ensures that maximum value is extracted from resources while in use, and products and materials are recovered and regenerated at the end of their lifecycle.

External Drivers and Social Change

Social and economic factors also drive waste mitigation and sustainable practices, including:

• Increasing pressure on supply chains

• Evolving public opinion on environmental issues

• Rising energy costs and waste charges

• The implementation of "Take Back" legislation

• Obligations to provide environment-related information

• Adherence to international standards and eco-labeling schemes

• Government subsidies and environmental competition awards

• The need to address environmental requirements in consumer tests and contracts

2.3 Energy Utilisation, Storage and Distribution Waste mitigation strategies

Energy utilization, storage and distribution

• Efficient energy use is an important consideration for designers in today's society. Energy conservation and efficient energy use are pivotal in our impact on the environment. A designer's goal is to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products or services using newer technologies or behavioral changes to avoid and reduce usage. For example, driving less is an example of energy conservation, while buying the same amount but with a higher mileage car is energy efficient.

Embodied energy

• The embodied energy in a product accounts for all of the energy required to produce it. It is a valuable concept for calculating the effectiveness of an energy-producing or energy-saving device.

Distributing energy: national and international grid systems

• The way in which electricity is distributed along the grid and the energy loss involved from small source collection and delivery, to large scale and the effect on the environment.

Local combined heat and power (CHP)

• Combined heat and power (CHP) is an efficient and clean approach to generating electric power and useful thermal energy from a single fuel source. CHP is used either to replace or supplement conventional separate heat and power (SHP). Instead of purchasing electricity from the local utility and burning fuel in an on-site furnace or boiler to produce thermal energy, an industrial or commercial facility can use CHP to provide both energy services in one energy-efficient step.

• Advantages of CHP include:

  • Reduced energy costs versus separate heat and electrical generation systems

  • Reduced emissions versus separate heat and electrical generation systems

  • Where the capture and use of waste heat is not viable, many industrial facilities may still benefit financially via distributed generation (DG)

Systems for individual energy generation

• Systems for individual energy generation such as microgeneration includes the small-scale generation of heat and electric power by individuals, small businesses and communities to meet their own needs, as alternatives or supplements to traditional centralized grid-connected power. E.g. solar power, wind turbines or biogas rainwater harvesting, compost toilets and greywater treatments among others.

Quantification of carbon emissions: Measuring

• record carbon emissions

• discover how much is being produced

• discover who/ where it is produced

• track your carbon footprint

Mitigation of carbon emissions: Reducing

• Humans intervention in the reduction of carbon emissions

• These contribute to global warming

• Resulting in melting polar caps, rising seas, desertification, provide 'Sinks' that can reabsorb carbon emissions

• A 'Sink' are forests, vegetation or soils.

Batteries, capacitors and capacities considering relative cost, efficiency, environmental impact and reliability.

• An electric battery is a device consisting of two or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Batteries and other electronic components (capacitors, chips, etc) have had a great impact on the portability of electronic products and, as new technologies are developed, they can become more efficient and smaller. Batteries are made from important resources and chemicals, including lead, cadmium, zinc, lithium and mercury. It’s important to understand the effects of your decisions as batteries are categorised into High, Medium and Low through the use of a sustainable lens (charging, impact on eco-system, etc).

2.4 Clean Technologies 

Clean Technology

Clean technology encompasses products, services, or processes that reduce waste and require the minimum amount of non-renewable resources. It is prevalent across various industries, including water, energy, manufacturing, advanced materials, and transportation. As Earth's resources dwindle, the demand for energy-efficient solutions should be a priority for designers. The convergence of environmental, technological, economic, and social factors will drive the development of more efficient technologies that rely less on outdated, polluting methods.

Drivers for Cleaning Up Manufacturing

Manufacturers may be driven to clean up their processes due to current or impending legislation or pressure from the local community and media. The key reasons for this include promoting positive impacts, ensuring a neutral or minimized negative impact through conserving natural resources, reducing pollution and energy use, and minimizing waste of energy and resources.

Breakdown of Environmental Problems by Geographical Scale

Environmental problems caused by products can be categorized based on their geographical scale:

• Local: Issues like noise, smell, air pollution, and soil and water pollution.

• Regional: Problems such as soil and water over-fertilization and pollution, drought, waste disposal, and air pollution.

• Fluvial: Pollution affecting rivers, regional waters, and watersheds.

• Continental: Concerns including ozone levels, acidification, winter smog, and heavy metals.

• Global: Challenges like climate change, sea level rise, and impacts on the ozone layer.

Legislation

The role and scale of legislation depend on the type of manufacturing and the perspectives of different countries. Legislation pushes manufacturers to clean up their processes and dictates how they respond to such laws. Governments, politicians, and businesses must consider manufacturing's environmental impact. Increased awareness of environmental issues has led to more pressure on governments to introduce or comply with legislation. These laws bind companies to environmental standards, and non-compliance can result in financial penalties.

International Targets for Reducing Pollution and Waste

International or continental agreements often set targets for reducing pollution and waste. These targets are typically discussed and agreed upon at international summits and meetings. Conflicts and disagreements can arise between countries over setting caps or limits, making it difficult to achieve agreements. Some countries may be more adversely affected by such limits, impacting their economy or corporate profits. Notable agreements include the Kyoto Protocol, Montreal Protocol, and the Carbon Trading Scheme.

End-of-Pipe Technologies

An initial approach to reducing pollutant emissions and waste creation is adding clean-up technologies at the end of the manufacturing process, known as the end-of-pipe approach. This involves treating water, air, noise, solid, or toxic wastes. Examples include carbon capture, filtration systems, composting, and catalytic converters on vehicles.

• Incremental Solutions: These involve improving and developing products over time, leading to new versions and generations.

• Radical Solutions: This approach involves devising completely new products by rethinking solutions from the ground up.

System Level Solutions

A system-level solution addresses pollution and waste holistically, focusing on the interrelationship of elements rather than individual parts. It helps policymakers and energy planners understand the impacts of existing and proposed legislation, policy, and plans on renewable energy development and deployment at various levels (local, state, regional, and national).

Agreements at international or continental levels set targets for reducing pollution and waste, typically discussed at international summits and meetings. Conflicts and disagreements between countries over limits can complicate achieving agreements. Some countries may be more adversely affected by such limits, impacting their economy or corporate profits.

2.5 Green Design 

Green Design

The product - role of designer: The starting point for many green products is to improve an existing product by redesigning aspects of it to address environmental objectives. The iterative development of these products can be incremental or radical depending on how effectively new technologies can address the environmental objectives. When new technologies are developed, the product can re-enter the development phase for further improvement.

Green Legislation

Laws and regulations that are based on conservation and sustainability principles, followed by designers and manufacturers when creating green products. Green legislation often encourages incremental, rather than radical approaches to green design. Sustainable products provide social and economic benefits while protecting public health, welfare, and the environment throughout their life cycle—from the extraction of raw materials to final disposal.

• Incremental Innovation is sometimes referred to as continuous improvement, and the business attitude associated with it is ‘inside-the-box’ thinking. A simple product may be improved (in terms of better performance or lower costs) through the use of higher performance components or materials. A complex product that consists of integrated technical subsystems can be improved by partial changes to one level of a sub-system. Incremental innovations do not involve major investments or risks. User experience and feedback is important and may dominate as a source for innovation ideas.

• Radical Innovation involves the development of new key design elements such as change in a product component combined with a new architecture for linking components. The result is a distinctively new product, product-service, or product system that is markedly different from the company’s existing product line. A high level of uncertainty is associated with radical innovation projects, especially at early stages.

Timescale to implement green design

Often, legislation requires governments and manufacturers to comply over many years. This can be beneficial to companies and manufacturers as they can adopt incremental approaches to green design, therefore minimizing the cost. However, some environmental concerns, for example carbon dioxide reduction and climate change, require immediate action.

Legislation

Environmental legislation has encouraged the design of greener products that tackle specific environmental issues, for example, eliminating the use of certain materials or energy efficiency.

Incremental changes to a design and as such is relatively easy to implement, for example, legislation relating to the use of catalytic converters for cars. The timescale for implementing green design is relatively short (typically 2–5 years) and therefore cost-effective.

Consumer Pressure

The public have become aware of environmental issues through media focus on issues such as the destructive effect of chlorofluorocarbons on the ozone layer; acid rain in Northern European forests and the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. Increased public awareness has put pressure on corporations and governments.

CFCs were the ideal refrigerants during their time. They were nonflammable, non-corrosive, nontoxic, and odorless. Used consumer products during the 70s and 80s, such as refrigerators, cleansing products, and propellants. CFC’s were found to be destructive to the Ozone layer.

Drivers for green design (consumer pressure and legislation)

Drivers for green design include consumer pressure and legislation, among others. Environmental legislation has encouraged the design of greener products that tackle specific environmental issues, for example, eliminating the use of certain materials or energy efficiency. Unfortunately, many companies value short-term profit and value for shareholders over the impact of their activities on the environment. Some companies lobby governments so that they can be exempt from legislation, or to try and persuade them to ‘water down’ legislation. Sometimes consumer pressure can be just as effective as legislation. Through social media, the bad behavior of companies can be exposed quickly, reach a wider audience, and consumers can decide as a large group to boycott a company. Social media has allowed the influence of consumers to grow exponentially. This can hurt a company’s profits greatly, persuading them to clean up their act.

Design objectives for green products

Design objectives for green products will often address three broad environmental categories:

1. Materials

2. Energy

3. Pollution/Waste

These objectives include:

1. increasing efficiency in the use of materials, energy, and other resources;

2. minimizing damage or pollution from the chosen materials;

3. reducing to a minimum any long-term harm caused by the use of the product;

4. ensuring that the planned life of the product is most appropriate in environmental terms and that the product functions efficiently for its full life;

5. taking full account of the effects of the end disposal of the product;

6. ensuring that the packaging and instructions encourage efficient and environmentally friendly use;

7. minimizing nuisances such as noise or smell;

8. analyzing and minimizing potential safety hazards;

9. minimizing the number of different materials used in a product;

10. labeling of materials so they can be identified for recycling.

When evaluating product sustainability, students need to consider:

1. raw materials used

2. packaging

3. incorporation of toxic chemicals

4. energy in production and use

5. end-of-life disposal issues

6. production methods

7. atmospheric pollutants.

Strategies for designing Green Products

The environmental impact of the production, use, and disposal of a product can be modified by the designer through careful consideration at the design stage. When designing green product consideration must be made for:

• raw materials used

• packaging

• incorporation of toxic chemicals

• energy in production and use

• end-of-life disposal issues

• production methods

• atmospheric pollutants.

Materials

• How much damage is done to the environment in extracting the raw material?

• How much energy is needed to process this material?

• How long will this material last/will it damage easily?

• Can this material be recycled?

Energy

• How can I reduce the amount of energy required to manufacture this product?

• How can I reduce the amount of energy required to use this product?

Pollution/Waste

• What is likely to happen to this product when it is obsolete?

• How can I reduce the chances of this product ending up in landfill or sent to incineration?

• How can I increase the chances of this product being repaired, reused or recycled?

• How can I reduce the amount of pollution given off by this product?

The prevention principle

The avoidance or minimization of hazards and waste. It aims to address the occupational health and safety concerns through each stage of the product life cycle.

A number of risk assessment tools can be used by companies to assess their operations for risk and introduce management systems to protect the health and safety of employees and minimize waste.

• Knowledge based

• Actual risk of causing harm can be assessed

• Occurrence of damage is probable if no measure is taken

• Regulation emission framework defines substantial criteria (eg. emissions thresholds)

• Definition of acceptable risk is primarily science-based

The precautionary principle

The anticipation of potential problems in relation to the environmental impact of the production, use, and disposal of a product. The precautionary principle permits a lower level of proof of harm to be used in policy-making whenever the consequences of waiting for higher levels of proof may be very costly and/or irreversible.

• Uncertainty

• Risk cannot be calculated and is only a suspected risk of causing harm

• Occurrence of damage is uncertain and cannot be predicted clearly

• Regulation through procedural requirements

• Social acceptance of the risk is considered

2.6 Eco Design 

Eco Design

• Eco-design is a more comprehensive approach than green design because it attempts to focus on all three broad environmental categories—materials, energy and pollution/waste. This makes eco-design more complex and difficult to do.

Impact of internal and external drivers for eco-design from an economic perspective

Internal drivers for eco-design

• Manager's sense of responsibility 

• The need for increased product quality

• The need for a better product and company image

• The need to reduce costs 

• The need for innovative power 

• The need to increase personnel motivation

External drivers for eco-design

• Government

• Market demand 

• Social environment

• Competitors

• Trade organisations

• Supplies

Cradle to grave 

• Cradle to grave design considers the environmental effects of a product all of the way from manufacture to use to disposal.

Cradle to the Gate

• Cradle to cradle design is a key principle of the circular economy. Cradle to Cradle® (C2C) is a holistic approach to design popularized by Professor Michael Braungart and William McDonough. Braungart and McDonough offer Cradle to Cradle® certification to products that measure up to the standards they set. According to their website: “The target is to develop and design products that are truly suited to a biological or technical metabolism, thereby preventing the recycling of products which were never designed to be recycled in the first place.

Cradle to the Gate

• Cradle to the Gate (Cradle-to-gate is an assessment of a partial product life cycle from resource extraction (cradle) to the factory gate (i.e., before it is transported to the consumer)

Life Cycle stages:

• Make sure you are able to assess the environmental impact of a given product over its life cycle through LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)-Pre-production, Production, Distribution including packaging, Utilization and Disposal. The complex nature of LCA means that it is not possible for a lone designer to undertake it and a team with different specialism is required. LCA is complex, time-consuming and expensive, so the majority of eco-designs are based on less detailed qualitative assessments of likely impacts of a product over its life cycle. The simplest example is the use of a checklist to guide the design team during a product’s design development stages

UNEP Ecodesign Manual

• In 1996 the United nations released an Eco-design manual also known as Design for Sustainability (D4S). 

• The major concerns outlined in the UNEP Ecodesign Manual were to: 

  • increase recyclability 

  • reduce energy requirements

  • maximise use of renewable resources 

  • reduce creation and use of toxic materials 

  • reduce material requirements of goods and services 

  • increase product durability and reduced planned obsolescence

Design for the environment software

• CAD Software that allows designers to perform Life cycle analysis (LCA) on a product and assess its environmental impact.

Product life cycle stages: the role of the designer, manufacturer and user

• The roles and responsibilities of the designer, manufacturer and user at each stage of the product life cycle can be explored through LCA. LCA identifies conflicts that have to be resolved through prioritization. It is not widely used in practice because it is difficult, costly and time-consuming. It is targeted at particular product categories—products with high environmental impacts in the global marketplace, for example, washing machines and refrigerators. However, in the re-innovation of the design of a product or its manufacture, specific aspects may be changed after considering the design objectives for green products, such as selecting less toxic materials or using more sustainable sources. A product may be distributed differently or its packaging may be redesigned.

Environmental impact assessment matrix 

• Environmental considerations include water, soil pollution and degradation, air contamination, noise, energy consumption, consumption of natural resources, pollution and effect on ecosystems

Converging technologies

• The synergistic merging of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technologies and cognitive science. A typical example of converging technology is the smart phone in terms of the materials required to create it, its energy consumption, disassembly, recyclability and the portability of the devices it incorporates.