Last modified: 2014-09-11
Abstract
projects. After performing a first viability assessment, between 38% and
56% of the ecodesign strategies were rejected, mainly in Transportation
(63%) and Concept (56%) lifecycle stages. Common barriers are economic
investment (e.g., new machinery or renewable energy systems) as well as
technical constrains (e.g., for using new materials or for improving energy
efficiency with new technologies). Social strategies are disregarded if the
company personnel believe that the consumer may not value the
improvements. For the design of the final prototype, only between 5% and
33% of the proposed strategies were considered by the company. Main
barriers include increase of production costs (20%) and low environmental
improvement (20%). The inclusion of economic and social indicators in the
ecodesign methodology could promote to overcome some of these barriers.
More efforts in Transportation, Concept and End of Life stages may be done
by encouraging companies to strength their interaction with the value chain
suppliers, promoting ecoinnovation and improving communication tools.
Keywords
References
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