Design engineers are more aware of the world in which they live than the average person; they have a better appreciation of the resources that are required to manufacture products and of the finite nature of the world’s resources. Most have also now formed an opinion about how urgently man-made climate change needs to be tackled. Yet design engineers and design managers may feel there is little they can do to make a difference within the constraints of their day-to-day work activities, that it is more a question of governments legislating and consumers being educated to change their behaviour.

Alastair Fuad-Luke, author of The Eco-design Handbook, however, believes designers can do more than they might expect and have a significant influence. He believes that a few simple steps can be taken, with the process starting today, rather than tomorrow: “First raise your own level of awareness about environmental and socio-cultural issues. Newspapers often carry well-informed articles on these subjects, and there are websites that will enable you to keep up to speed with current thinking and the latest developments. And as you raise your own awareness, you will be able to spot which articles are adding to the debate and which are just subjective opinions.”

Another area where individuals can take immediate action is in identifying where they have control and decision-making power. For a designer, this will typically be in materials selection. Fuad-Luke explains it this way: “One way to measure the eco-efficiency of materials is to consider the embodied energy. This energy relates to the energy required to extract the raw resources, transport them to a factory and process them into refined materials. One tonne of aluminium, for example, takes more than 100 times more energy to produce than one tonne of sawn timber. In general, materials extracted from nature and requiring little processing tend to be low-embodied-energy materials (typically 2–12MJ/kg), while man-made materials tend to have medium or high embodied energies (typically 10MJ/kg to over 1000MJ/kg).”

Of course, energy considerations also extend beyond manufacture, especially for products that consume energy during their use (Fig.1). When an aluminium car leaves the production line it may have more embodied energy than an equivalent steel car, but the lighter aluminium car will be more energy-efficient when it is driven. Depending on the type of product, the energy consumed during its use can represent 80percent of its environmental impact over its whole life-cycle, so the embodied energy of the raw material is only part of the story.

As Fuad-Luke points out, this leads on to another area where designers can make a difference: “Design products that use renewable energy sources – such as solar, human or wind power – and aim to maximise the energy efficiency.” One of the beauties of this approach is that it not only makes the product ‘greener’, but it also makes it better; a more energy-efficient laptop computer will have a longer battery life, which is a high priority for many consumers. Taking this idea a step further, the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project has developed the XO computer (Fig.2) that consumes less than 10percent of the power used by a conventional laptop, making it feasible to recharge the batteries using human power. This is said to be a critical advance for the half-billion children who have no access to electricity.

Around 20years ago a popular way for companies to increase profitability was by implementing design for manufacture (DfM) techniques. Today, as thoughts turn to product life-cycles, the talk is of design for disassembly (DfD), often as one element of design for the environment (DfE) or Design for Sustainability (DfS) or Sustainable Product Design (SPD). The idea behind DfD is that the product components can be readily separated so that they can either be reused or refurbished ‘as is’ or broken down into separate materials for recycling. While there are numerous software packages available for life-cycle assessment (LCA), designers can take one simple step that will help at the end of the product’s life: label the materials used. If components (especially plastics) are identified as being made from a particular material, they can be recycled far more cost-effectively.

In some ways environmental issues are being forced on product manufacturers, especially those selling in Europe. This is through legislation and regulations such as the Energy Labelling Directive (ELD), the End of Life Vehicle (ELV) Directive, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive and the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS) Directive. Fuad-Luke feels these – and the RoHS Directive in particular, have been successful: “The ‘stick’ has worked well, but the ‘stick’ is also getting bigger and heavier.

The eco-design of Energy-using Products (EuP) Directive will result in reduced energy use across a variety of products. And the ‘energy use’ refers to all aspects of energy – embodied energy, packaging/transport/distribution, energy consumption and energy for end-of-life processing; the Directive takes a whole life-cycle approach.”

Complying with current and forthcoming legislation is something that companies have to consider at the highest level. Something also having an impact at board level is corporate social responsibility (CSR), and there are also huge pressures from society for business to operate more eco-efficiently. Consequently there is a trickle-down effect that results in design managers and engineers implementing corporate policies. Fuad-Luke believes Sir Nicholas Stern’s report (Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change) has made a big difference: “Economists, governments and chief executives have all started to sit up and take note. They are accepting that urgent action is required if the potentially serious consequences of climate change are to be avoided. Design, of course, has an important contribution to make.”

Fuad-Luke is also involved with the first Europe-wide project to bring sustainability into the education and industry mainstream. Deeds (Design Education and Sustainability) aims to integrate sustainability into mainstream design education and practice in the EU. It is being funded by the European Leonardo Da Vinci programme, which is part of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme, and is designed to build a skilled workforce through European partnerships. By October 2008 it is intended that the Deeds website (www.deedsproject.org) will have downloadable teaching modules for use in educational establishments, as well as further modules that practicing designers can download to teach themselves.

If designers and design managers are able to raise their own awareness of the issues surrounding sustainable product design, they can play an import part in educating higher levels of management and, in the case of design consultancies, client companies. Fuad-Luke describes how this works: “Many clients are not yet aware of the triple bottom line (TBL) in which improved environmental, social performance and monetary profits go hand-in-hand. I was recently asked to facilitate at an event called the Open Invitation Challenge organised by British Design Innovation, with sponsorship from the London Manufacturing Advisory Service and others, in which 12 or so SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and a similar number of design agencies came together. Workshop sessions enabled the SMEs and agencies to innovate together to develop existing products or create new products while taking sustainability into account. We used a simple paper-based graphical tool, the Ecodesign Strategy Wheel, to highlight sustainability issues throughout the product’s lifecycle. The event was very successful, demonstrating how designers can act as educators and help to create products that meet the requirements – yet are both sustainable and profitable. Interestingly, an event such as this simply would not have happened three or four years ago, so this shows how far we have moved forward in terms of recognising the importance of sustainable design, even though some of the ideas date back 150years or so.”

In the late 1980s there was an increase in awareness of ‘green’ issues among designers and consumers. However, Fuad-Luke points out that there was an unexpected and unfortunate effect: “Marketing people started to take advantage of ‘green’ labels and made claims that were often over-stated. Some consumers started to get cynical about environmental claims, but today they are more sophisticated. Although they still want value for money, consumers are increasingly taking an interest in the sustainability and ethical issues of what they buy, particularly if it relates to energy efficiency. But one thing that designers can and should do is check that any claims made in marketing material are realistic.”

Successful sustainable product designs do come with a caveat, comments Fuad-Luke: “If a product is ‘too good’, it can suffer from what is known as the ‘rebound effect’. This is where, for example, a hybrid petrol-electric car is so energy-efficient that a driver ends up driving more miles, thereby negating the benefits of the sustainable product. Designers therefore have to keep an eye on any potential knock-on effects that their sustainable designs might have.”

Technology sometimes gets a bad reputation in terms of sustainability, especially if the resultant products consume energy or appeal to fashion-conscious consumers and are therefore discarded prematurely. Mobile telephones are one example, where millions of useable products have been disposed of in landfill sites simply because their owners have bought newer models. On the other hand, technology can have a hugely beneficial effect, especially with what is known as a product-service system (PSS).

“These are service systems that consist of products and associated supporting infrastructure that have less environmental impact than conventional products that would fulfil the same need. A good example of a PSS is MP3 music players. By downloading music tracks to an MP3 player from the internet, users are avoiding the environmental impact associated with manufacturing, distributing and, eventually, disposing of CDs and their packaging (Fig.3).

For designers, the internet also offers fast, environmentally-efficient access to information. Fuad-Luke says: “The internet is also a gateway to the software-based tools that can be used for life-cycle analysis or materials selection. Trial versions of LCA tools can be downloaded and used so a designer can decide whether the software is to his or her liking.” For materials selection, Granta Design’s Eco Selector tool offers powerful selection capability with data tailored towards eco-design and analysis; potential users can request a custom demonstration over the internet.

Fuad-Luke suggests that designers should use the internet to both improve their own awareness of sustainability issues and get involved in the debate: “The Deeds project will feature online surveys and enable users to upload their own material.” There are also a number of blogs covering sustainability, and these are an excellent opportunity for interaction with other designers.

Design engineers clearly can empower themselves to improve the sustainability of the products they design and to educate others. Fuad-Luke concludes: “If you want a way to sum up sustainable product design, think about trying to minimise the embodied energy per life-cycle-span-year, while still producing a saleable product. Designers can make a real difference.”

Alastair Fuad-Luke is the author of The Eco-design Handbook, Project manager of Deeds (Design Education & Sustainability), and a senior lecturer in SPD at the University College of Creative Arts, Farnham, Surrey, UK.