A New Online Environmental Tool for Designers and Business
The way we design, make and unmake products is a major contributor to environmental impacts and issues.
Over 80% of product-related environmental impacts are typically locked-in during the design phase of a product. Waste, toxics, global warming and water scarcity impacts can be significantly minimised through intelligent design, lifecycle thinking and eco-innovation.
Product designers, their clients, brand-owners and producers, need the ability to create rapid, easy to manage product baselines from which they can deliver improved environmental outcomes.
WSP Environment & Energy – a global environment and sustainability consulting firm, formed a multidisciplinary team of software engineers, web-designers and environmental specialists to work closely with product designers, sustainability professionals, manufacturers and design educators, to address life cycle thinking for product developers. The result is Product Ecology™ – an online environmental assessment tool purpose built for designers and related professionals.
John Gertsakis, Senior Sustainability Associate with WSP believes that designers and manufacturers are ready for pragmatic DIY tools as opposed to expensive consultants:
“Industrial designers and product engineers have a growing appetite for web-based tools that are underpinned by good science and trustworthy environmental data. And while environmental software is not new, there is a major gap in affordable tools that are suited designers.”
“Product Ecology is focussed on mainstreaming EcoDesign and life cycle thinking, so we’ve created a uncomplicated online tool to transform designers into pragmatic environmental champions. More than anything we want product development professionals to realise their sustainability strategies” said Gertsakis.
Product Ecology™ has four key features:
- Lifecycle Designer – analyses impacts from materials, production and transport through to end-of-life.
- ecoCompare™ –compares CO2 emissions, waste and water impacts of materials and processes.
- EcoDesign Quickstarts – checklists and sustainable design strategies.
- Compliance Navigator – reviews product designs against specific regulations and standards.
Product Ecology™ is underpinned by the Ecoinvent database, which has been developed over many years by the Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories. Product Ecology™ is globally applicable and has been developed for a diverse range of users, from individual design practitioners, engineers, and educators, through to environmental consultants, OEMS and brands. Users are able to quickly and accurately generate visually striking reports, accessible as PDFs for distribution to clients, colleagues and project partners.
“Making environmentally sound decisions during the product development process is now much more designer friendly, especially when budgets are limited and timelines are short. Being able to easily import a Bill of Material and make quick environmental assessments is incredibly valuable” said Mark Armstrong, Managing Director of the Blue Sky Design Group in Sydney Australia on Product Ecology
Test drive Product Ecology™ at: www.productecologyonline.com
