The holistic approach to promote the eco-design

Anna Moreno

Tel Aviv

11 July 2011

The environment does not see any border!!

� Clouds go from one part of the planet to the other

� The pollution can be generated in USA and end up in Europe or in Asia and vice versa

� Everybody has to contribute to preserve our planet!!

New paradigm for environmental impact

� Reducing the environmental impacts of products for the majority means:

� To improve production processes,

� To properly treat the waste and effluent streams.

� But, in order to successfully address environmental sustainability issues, it is important to consider:

� the design,

� manufacture,

� use of a product

across its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction and conversion, to its manufacture and distribution, through to use/re-use/recycling, and ultimate disposal.

The holistic approach and the life cycle thinking

� The use of a holistic life cycle perspective helps manufacturers and policy makers identify possible improvements across the industrial system and through all the product’s life cycle stages. It also applies to improving industrial processes and activities.

� This approach is sometimes known as “life cycle thinking”, that is, the need to gather information from “cradle to grave”.

Life cycle thinking: need to collect information during all

the life cycle of a product

The DEPUIS projects: Design Environmentally friendly Products Using Information Standards

Objectives:

� To introduce life cycle thinking (LCT) in the design of new products and processes;

� To create understanding of the use of product data technology (PDT) to support life-cycle thinking at the design stage;

� To promote innovative learning processes to provide the necessary awareness, knowledge, skill to different users class;

� To Certify new skills for the product data management for developing the capacity to decrease the time to market and to decrease the environmental impact of products using PDT

www.depuis.enea.it

The use of PDT for eco-design

� data to take decisions about sustainability and the impact on the environment is generated in individual computer systems;

� this data has to be shared and exchanged between many different organizations with different systems and applications with many different methods of working;

� the data has to be conserved for longer than the lifetime of any computer system or software application;

� the data needs to be used and understood by unknown systems at unknown times in the future.

Engineering data to support the whole life approach

�data to accompany a product throughout its life so that its end-of-life can be effectively managed;

�data that can be used to:

� estimate the impact on the environment of the

product throughout its life,

� to support design decisions that minimise waste and reduce emissions to the environment

�To provide logistic support throughout the life time of the product

The use of different standards to collect the information during the life cycle of a product

Overview of the different role of standards

To monitor the applianceof the IPP policy and

improve the integrationamong the process chain

Life cycle data management

Environmental performance

E-business

To decrease the environmental impact

of product duringtheir life cycle

To enlarge themarket for the

new technology

Administrativeprocedure for eco-industry

Standards

To spread goodpractices

in all EuropeTo monitor the appliance

of the IPP policy andimprove the integration

among the process chainLife cycle data management

Environmental performance

E-business

To decrease the environmental impact

of product duringtheir life cycle

To enlarge themarket for the

new technology

Administrativeprocedure for eco-industry

Standards

To spread goodpractices

in all Europe

Standardised data representations independent from proprietary software

The main standards of product data technology that are important for the whole life approach are:

� ISO 10303 – information models and resources to describe individual products, properties and processes in a computer-understandable form;

� ISO 13584 – information model to specify dictionaries of products and properties and to support applications of ISO 10303 information models;

� ISO 15926 – reference data library to specify terms and definitions for products and processes;

� ISO 8000 – standards for the quality control and quality assurance of product data.

If standards are so “good” why we still need to talk about?

� Even if the standards exist and it has been demonstrated to work well they are still not widely known and used

� The standards are very complex and needs “experts” to be applied in any single context: they are not “plug and play”

� The standards are useful only if they are widely used otherwise they are only a useless extra effort

� There are many key actors which need to have a proactive role for the promotion and use of these standards

The key role of decision makers and teachersto widely promote the standards

Decisionmakers

Future generations

Designers

Technicians

Teachers

The continuous improvement circle

Standardization

Education &training

Publicprocurement

Awareness

Legislation

R & D

The importance of the knowledge dissemination and the

DEPUIS Multimedia handbook

� Fundamental and basic knowledge for everybody

� Integrated Product Policy

� Product data technology importance

� Basic understanding of LCA and ISO 14000 standards

� Basic understanding of ECODESIGN

� knowledge specific for designers and teachers

� Knowledge specific for technicians

DEPUIS web site: www.depuis.enea.it

The DEPUIS multimedia handbook:www.depuis.enea.it

The SC4 implementation forumweb site: www.sc4-if.enea.it

The self evaluation questionnaire

The searchable data base for standard

MDS for standards

The data base of good practices

Downloadable technical documents

MDS for courses

The registration to the web site

Profile:•decision makers•managers•designers•software developers•standards developers•teachers•students•others

“Data base of other useful stuff”

New skills and their qualification/certification

� New skills needs to be recognized among and within enterprises

� Stakeholders will define the criteria for the qualification of the new skills

� An external body will certify the competences in accordance to what has been established by the stakeholders

� The certification will be recognized at international level

Conclusion � There is a real opportunity to use PDT to solve many

problems at the same time:

� Have more efficient transfer of data within and among enterprises

� Reduce the possibility of mistakes

� Long term electronic data archiving

� Easier and more trustful LCA and REACH evaluations

� Introduce the life cycle thinking concept in the design phase

� Ensure an efficient life cycle product support

� It is very important to have every single key actor to play its role to definitively promote the PDT among the enterprises and take all the advantages.

“Earth is a small planet” but it is the only one we can use now!!

The Sun compared with other starsEarth seen by Saturnus

For more information

www.depuis.enea.it

www.sc4-if.enea.it

anna.moreno@enea.it

tel. +39 06 3048 6474