Establishing the Ecodesign Strategy

Abstract

This paper elaborates steps of establishing the ecodesign strategy for the selected product to be redesigned. It also establishes how much latitude the project team needs, and whether it should proceed incrementally (evolution) or more drastically (revolution). To benefit full from such innovations, it is important to consider which ecodesign routes are the best from both the environmental and the corporate perspective. In one step therefore the paper focuses on establishing the most promising ecodesign strategy for the project. The problem which was defined in the design brief in earlier steps is now analysed in greater detail. There are three very important questions to answer: «What can the company do?», «What does the company want to do?» and «What must the company do?». Based on the analysis of the environmental product profile and the company’s drivers for ecodesign, priorities are set concerning the most suitable ecodesign strategy to follow in the project. The paper ends with a specification of the environmental requirements for the planned product.