Product Innovations and Eco-Sustainability: An Approach to Evaluate the Relationships

Abstract:

The academic and industrial literature presents a lot of innovations to improve the energy efficiency of the home appliances around the world. However, few methodologies are able to combine innovations and eco-sustainability, during the design phase of green products.In this context, the paper defines an approach to analyse the relationships between different types of innovation and the relative environmental impacts, during the product lifecycle. The analysis has been performed by defining innovations categories and comparing the product Life Cycle Assessment before and after their implementation. This approach represents the preliminary phase of the innovation process, required to support the product manager.The approach has been experimented within a household appliances company, highlighting that there are innovations able to reduce the energy and water consumption respectively of 25% and 30%.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 572)
• Pages: 74-77
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.572.74
• Online since: September 2013
• Authors: Alessandra Papetti, Michele Germani, Marco Mandolini
• Keywords: Household Appliances, Life Cycle Assessment, Product Innovation

References

[1] R. Ciegis, J. Ramanauskiene and B. Martinkus: The Concept of Sustainable Development and its Use for Sustainability Scenarios, Inzinerine Ekonomika-Engineering Economics Vol. 2 (2009), pp.28-37.

[2] T. Hellström: Dimensions of Environmentally Sustainable Innovation: the Structure of Eco-Innovation Concepts, Sustainable Development Vol. 15 (2007), pp.148-159.

DOI: 10.1002/sd.309

[3] C.J. Yang and J.L. Chen: Accelerating preliminary eco-innovation design for products that integrates case-based reasoning and TRIZ method, Journal of Cleaner Production Vol. 19 (2011), pp.998-1006.

DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2011.01.014

[4] E. Jones, N.A. Stanton and D. Harrison: Applying structured methods to Ecoinnovation. An evaluation of the Product Ideas Tree diagram, Design Studies Vol. 22 (2001), pp.519-542.

DOI: 10.1016/s0142-694x(01)00007-2

[5] H. Kobayashi: A systematic approach to eco-innovative product design based on life cycle planning, Advanced Engineering Informatics Vol. 20 (2006), pp.113-125.

DOI: 10.1016/j.aei.2005.11.002

[6] M. Hauschild, J. Jeswiet and L. Alting: From Life Cycle Assessment to Sustainable Production: Status and Perspectives, CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology Vol. 54 (2005), pp.1-21.

DOI: 10.1016/s0007-8506(07)60017-1

[7] J. Horbach, Christian Rammer and K. Rennings: Determinants of eco-innovations by type of environmental impact — The role of regulatory push/pull, technology push and market pull, Ecological Economics Vol. 78 (2012), pp.112-122.

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.04.005

[8] J. Carrillo-Hermosilla, P. del Río and Totti Könnölä: Diversity of eco-innovations: Reflections from selected case studies, Journal of Cleaner Production Vol. 18 (2010), pp.1073-1083.

DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2010.02.014

[9] P. Bansal, E. Vineyard and O. Abdelaziz: Advances in household appliances - A review, Applied Thermal Engineering Vol. 31 (2011), pp.3748-3760.

DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2011.07.023