Gone are the days when design was, well, design. Today it's design-for-manufacturability, design-for-quality, design-for-cost, and yes, design-for-environment.
Design-for-environment, or DfE, takes into account the environmental impact of a product from the time of its inception to the end of life, and then back into the resource pool for future products, typically referred to as cradle-to-cradle. It's a radical departure from the status quo, according to Pamela Gordon, lead consultant at Technology Forecasters Inc. (TFI) Environment, Alameda, Calif.
"Over the past 50 years," said Gordon, "we've moved to a disposable mentality for electronics. The benefits were quick and easy access to new technologies, but we had a buildup of electronic waste. Design-for-environment makes the product useful for many more years."
When looked at through a DfE lens, virtually every aspect of a product is affected, including the size, weight and energy requirements of the product. An important question to ask is, are there opportunities for reducing the number of components and consolidating components? This could save real estate, trim the bill of materials and the number of suppliers required.
The types of materials chosen for both the product and the packaging are also important. And by redesigning the product for ease of disassembly, reusable parts can be easily removed at end of life. For those parts that can't be reused, the design has to maximize the number that are recyclable so as to minimize waste going to landfill.
Once the product is designed, there are supply chain and logistics issues to consider, such as determining the manufacturing location to minimize the cost and carbon footprint. Another factor is how many miles all the components have to travel before they come together in the final product at the customer's location. One top-tier electronics OEM estimates that the carbon footprint of its supply chain is 20 times that of its own operations.
Seems like a lot to consider? It is, but virtually none of the DfE considerations are inconsistent with the cost or quality requirements of design. In fact, they can contribute in a positive way to both cost and quality.
