Design for sustainability

In last years, increasing attention on environmental matters is registered and companies are forced by legislations, normative and protocols to increase the environmental performances of their products. Observing the industrial context, it emerges there are several barriers for an effective implementation of eco-design strategies inside design departments. The paper presents a knowledge repository tool, which aims at both, providing a basic guide on environmental sustainability issues and favoring knowledge sharing among design departments. The tool is mainly based on a structured repository in which company materials, organized in different forms, are collected. The repository contains training section, well-organized guidelines, company specific knowledge and milestone. The implementation of the tool in two industrial companies is presented and results of usability and tool effectiveness discussed.

Keywords: Company knowledge , Environmental sustainability , Knowledge sharing

Packaging waste is cause for serious concern. Each year hun-dreds of millions of tons of packaging are produced, therefore solutions that drastically reduce their environmental impact are urgently needed. While the recycling of metal, wood, paper and cardboard packaging has been significantly improved, an efficient recycling or disposal of some plastics is not yet feasible. The European Union implemented various regulations concerning packaging and packaging waste and set some relevant short to medium-term targets for recycling and disposal rates. Over the last decade, the global trend of the eco-sustainable packaging market is heading in the same direction. The aim of this research is to develop an innovative and sustainable composite material for the production of tertiary packaging based on the combination of nat-ural fibres and biodegradable biopolymers. In particular, the experimental application entailed the creation of prototypes con-sisting of a material made of straw and biodegradable plastic Mater-Bi® which is named NeoPalea. The new material was pro-totyped to verify its physical characteristics and to determine its potential use to replace current not-biodegradable packaging. The results show a good match with the characteristics of current poly-mers, suggesting that this material can be used as a potential sub-stitute in packaging applications.

Keywords: Bio-packaging , Biodegradable , Bioplastic , Circular economy , Composting , Recycling , Straw

This paper provides an overview of the environmental impacts of diofferent types of passenger transportation means (i.e., bicycles, motorcycles, cars, buses, trains, and airplanes). The method has been applied to the European scenario. The study was performed by using life cycle assessment in accordance with international standard ISO 14040/44 for assessing the CO2 eq., SO2, and PM10 of the transportation means by exploiting data (i.e., vehicles features and environmental impacts) from 24 scientific papers from the literature that have been manually analyzed. The functional unit is defined as the impact per 1 passenger over 1 km. The study identified that planes are the most impacting for CO2 eq. with up to 380 g/pkm, while cars are the most impacting for SO2 with up to 1.78 g/pkm and PM10 with 0.98 g/pkm. Electric and hybrid models proved to be significantly better than others, while buses are the most sustainable in general. Referring to the overall European scenario, cars constitute up to 95% of the overall impacts. By comparing some improvements for reducing the impacts, it emerged that the limitation of diesel cars along with the increase of buses and trains are the most eoffective. The provided outcomes may be useful for legislators, manufacturers, and users for favoring the choice of the transportation means in a more environmentally conscious way.

Keywords: Electric transportation , Environmental impact , Life cycle assessment (LCA) , Transportation impact

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview about the distribution of the environmental impacts arising from different domestic functions (i.e. storing and preparing food, washing dishes, watching television, reading, personal cleaning, washing, drying and ironing clothes, home cleaning, heating, cooling, lighting and mobility) typically performed within a common family home. The method has general validity but for reasons related to the availability of data in the literature it has been applied by way of example only in three EU countries: Italy, Germany and France. The study was performed by using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in accordance with international standard ISO 14067 for determining the carbon footprint of different alternative domestic components, mainly appliances, for each function, by exclusively exploiting data from scientific literature. The functional unit is defined comprising all most common referred domestic activities of a family of three members within a house of 100 m2. The study identified an optimal configuration and a worse one of the domestic components in terms of carbon footprint, showing how a wise choice of these can greatly affect the overall impact by reducing it compared to the worst by more than 22% in Italy, 45% in Germany and 56% in France. The average impacts between the optimal and the worst configurations of Germany are higher than Italy (+27%) and France (+44%). Considering the impacts among the domestic functions in the average configuration, mobility was the most impactful in all the three countries (35–48%), followed by heating (17–26%), personal cleaning (10–13%) and washing dishes (8–13%), while cooling is consistent only in Italy (13%), against 5% in Germany and 2% in France. The study also allowed to identify some generic criteria for defining the optimal configuration: the increasing in energy efficiency, the choice of the least impacting energy source depending on the geographical location, ensuring water savings and the early replacement of older domestic components. Finally, by comparing some common measures for improving the domestic sustainability, these criteria proved to be more effective than solar systems and improved electricity mix. The provided outcomes may be used by manufacturers for improving their product in a more sustainable way as well as by legislator and end user, respectively for boosting and choosing the greener domestic components.

Keywords: Appliances carbon footprint , Environmental impact , Household carbon footprint , Life cycle assessment (LCA)

This paper proposes a set of Eco-guidelines for supporting designers in developing new greener products and processes. The first requirement that a guideline should have is to be sufficiently general to cover every kind of problem and at the same time sufficiently specific to bring the user closer to the solution without requiring too much personal inspiration. This balance was searched by adopting one of the most known systematic innovation techniques: TRIZ (Russian acronym of Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). In the literature, there are many examples of integrations between Eco-guidelines and problem-solving methods, but the solutions that are suggested, however effective, are not necessarily eco-friendly. To overcome this problem, the authors propose a rigorous ontology indicating how to apply a specific problem-solving strategy onto a specific part of the problem, trying to make the user aware of the environmental consequences of his design changes. The result of this work is a set of 59 guidelines. The article explains the birth of each guideline, the way in which they were adapted with respect to the known technique, and the motivation for which they should generate greener solutions, in light of the results of an experiment involving engineering students in real industrial cases.

Keywords: Eco-guidelines , Ecodesign , Problem-solving , TRIZ

Documentation and conservation of underwater cultural heritage (UCH) are crucial to preserving humankind's history and traditions, safeguarding tangible testimonies of past human life while ensuring its accessibility to future generations. The TECTONIC (Technological Consortium TO develop sustainability of underwater Cultural Heritage) project is promoting an intersectoral collaboration between academic and non-academic professionals (i.e., archaeologists, conservators, geologists, engineers, etc.) working on different topics related to UCHs, to find solutions to the issues still existing in the field. The overall aim is the exchange of skills for the improvement and assessment of innovative materials and techniques to develop solutions and marketable products for the conservation and management of the UCH, sustainably. To achieve its overall aim, TECTONIC is undertaking activities driven by the following objectives: (a) the study, documentation, and mapping of selected UCHs; (b) the creation of decision-support tools for UCH risk assessment in a changing environment; (c) the initiation of conservation studies and protocols for conservation activities; (d) the development of open and low-cost robotic solutions for the inspection of UCH; and (e) the raising of public awareness and knowledge about UCH. All the objectives are devoted to stimulating new sustainable ideas that would bring the growth of cultural tourism and the development of new marketable products by capitalizing on the research results.

Keywords: Archaeology , Materials , Protection , Sustainability , Tourism , Underwater cultural heritage (UCH); 3D

In a sustainable management of logistics, transportation plays a crucial role. Traditionally, the main purpose was to solve the Vehicle Routing Problem minimizing the cost associated with the travelled distances. Nowadays, the economic profit cannot be the only driver for achieving sustainability and environmental issues have to be also considered. In this paper, to satisfy the intricate limits involved in real vehicle routing problem, the study has been structured considering different types of vehicles in terms of maximum capacity, velocity and emissions, asymmetric paths, vehicle-client constraints and delivery time windows. The firefly algorithm has been implemented to solve the vehicle routing problem and the TOPSIS technique has been applied to integrate economic and environmental factors. Finally, to prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a numerical example has been proposed using data provided by a logistic company located in Sicily.

Keywords: Decision making , Firefly algorithm , Sustainability , TOPSIS , Vehicle routing problem

Nowadays, more than in the past, marine industries are paying increasing attention to the environmental impact of ships and vessels. Several solutions have been studied and adopted with the final aim of reducing the exhaust gas emissions, mainly acting on the fuel consumption reduction. Within this scenario, the aim of this article is to investigate the energy performance and the fuel saving potential when employing a magnetic continuously variable transmission in a marine propulsion system. Such magnetic continuously variable transmission, considered among other possible continuously variable transmission designs since its torque capabilities are perfectly suitable for the application at hand, is employed in order to optimize the overall propulsion efficiency through an appropriate optimal variation of the reduction ratio as a function of the propeller loads. A secondary benefit, although not less important, is that the magnetic continuously variable transmission is an oil-free transmission that consequently offers a lower environmental impact as compared to traditional lubricated gearboxes. Owing to these considerations, in the article, the magnetic continuously variable transmission size is first selected on the basis of a simplified static model of the vessel. Subsequently, a dynamic mathematical model representing the overall drivetrain dynamic of the propulsion plant is developed, with the purpose of simulating the transmission behaviour during fast ship manoeuvres. Then, in order to test the effectiveness of the proposed design, a trawler is selected as a case study. This particular ship type has been chosen as it provides a variegated operative profile in terms of speed and required thrust, thus being a representative case of those ships in which a continuously variable transmission installation could effectively provide practical benefits. A quantitative analysis of the plant efficiency is finally provided and critically discussed.

Keywords: continuously variable transmission , fuel consumption , Marine propulsion plant , ship energy efficiency , time domain simulation

At present, energy consumption strongly affects the financial payback period of industrial robots, as well as the related manufacturing process sustainability. Henceforth, during both design and manufacturing management stages, it becomes crucial to assess and optimize the overall energy efficiency of a robotic cell by means of digital manufacturing tools. In practice, robotic plant designers and managers should be able to provide accurate decisions also aimed at the energy optimization of the robotic processes. The strong scientific and industrial relevance of the topic has led to the development of many solutions but, unfortunately, state of the art industrial manipulators are equipped with closed controllers, which heavily limit the feasibility and performance of most of the proposed approaches. In light of the aforementioned considerations, the present paper presents a novel simulation tool, seamlessly interfaced with current robot offline programming tools used in industrial practices, which allows to automatically compute energy-optimal motion parameters, thus reducing the robot energy consumption, while also keeping the same productivity and manufacturing quality. The main advantage of this method, as compared to other optimization routines that are not conceived for direct integration with commercial industrial manipulators, is that the computed parameters are the same ones settable in the robot control codes, so that the results can automatically generate ready-to-use energy-optimal robot code. Experimental tests, performed on a KUKA Quantec KR210 R2700 prime industrial robot, have confirmed the effectiveness of the method and engineering tool.

Keywords: Automatic code generation , Energy optimization , Industrial robotics , Industry 4.0 , Robot offline programming , Sustainable manufacturing , Virtual prototyping

Littering is a highly diffused anti-environmental and anti-social behavior, especially among young people. Furthermore, cigarette butts are one of the most littered items and are responsible for both severe environmental damages and high clean up expenses. The aim of this project is to design an interactive ashtray for the campus environment to limit the cigarette butts littering behavior in an engaging and effective way. Qualitative and quantitative data are collected. Coded observations were implemented through the research process, including the 2 pre (without the prototype) and 2 pros (with the prototype) sessions. Also, user experience test and one to one interview were conducted for deepening the understanding of the littering phenomenon and the reasons behind in the behavior among young people. The prototype indeed reduced the number of cigarette butts littering among observed behaviors of 156 students, especially in male sample. Final results indicate the behavior change of disposers is moderated by other factors, as the environmental cleanliness. Future development is also discussed.

Keywords: Design for Behavior Change , Gamification , Multisensory product experience , Sustainability , User centred design

The scarce availability of water in highly populated cities is about to become a social problem. While the water service companies work on improving the distribution network in order to reduce losses, it is evident that one of the main problems is due to an excess of use of this resource by users. This consumption is relatively controlled when excessive consumption is clearly associated, in the consumer mind, with high costs. However, when users are in public places they tend to consume water because of a loss of correlation with costs. In this paper, we describe the design of a device to be installed in public environments, which aims to reduce the consumption of water. The device measures in real time the flow of water and sends the user visual and sound information trying to create a link between consumption and costs. The device has been installed in a university campus bathroom and has been tested. Test results show a reduction in water consumption, especially in the interactive prototype approach compared to the conventional treatment. Further modifications for future development of the interactive device is also discussed.

Keywords: Design for sustainable behavior , Multisensory product experience , Sustainability , User centred design , Water conservation

Despite the potential to lead to enhanced environmental performance, the extent to which eco-design leads to success is still unclear. In order to lay bare the effects of eco-design implementation, this paper focuses on understanding the correlations between specific eco-design principles and success through an exploratory study. A sample of 178 products, characterized in terms of their success levels and implemented eco-design principles, was statistically analyzed. The results indicate a number of positive correlations for principles that tend to favor success (e.g. intensified use and product/service systems) and negative correlations for principles that tend to moderate the chances of success (e.g. minimize packaging). Although the mechanisms that cause this phenomenon should be further investigated, the findings can provide designers with additional recommendations for the selection of eco-design principles.

Keywords: Eco-design principles , New product development , Product life cycle , Success catalysts , Sustainable products

Previous studies have failed to provide a comprehensive view on the value perception of green products. The present research takes up this challenge through an experiment in which 43 participants have interacted with and evaluated 40 products-20 baseline products and 20 green products of the same categories. The experiment included both self-assessments to monitor conscious evaluations of the products and biometric measurements (Eye-Tracking and Galvanic Skin Response) to capture unconscious aspects. The results show that different forms of perceived value emerge clearly. Green products, for which participants required greater efforts in the search for relevant information, boost the value attributed to creative solutions still believed of high quality. This effect is significantly more evident for participants showing remarkable interest for sustainability issues. Conversely, alternative products feature greater value perception because they are acknowledged to be functional and reliable.

Keywords: Attitude-behavior gap , Biometric measures , Creativity , Eco-design , Estimated price , Eye-tracking , Green products , Principal component analysis , Value perception , Willingness to pay

Understanding the impact of inventive solutions on consumers' value perception is essential to develop successful products. This applies particularly to sustainable solutions, which need to penetrate the market to pursue environmental objectives. This paper explores the value perception of three categories of TRIZ-oriented sustainable solutions, namely designs that have undergone dynamization, change of the physical state or the field exploited. Through an experimental study with 43 participants, supported by a specific questionnaire and biometric measures (eye tracking, skin conductance), self-assessments and unconscious behavioral aspects were gathered while a series of 18 product pictures was shown. Out of them, 9 products implement one of the above TRIZ-oriented principles and 9 constitute same-category products with a higher environmental impact. The results show that the different categories of TRIZ solutions give rise to diverse nuances of value perception. This outcome triggers further considerations concerning the ease of interpreting design modifications steered by TRIZ concepts and heuristics.

Keywords: Biometric measures , Eco-design , Eco-innovation , Human perception , TRIZ-oriented sustainable solutions

Many outputs of the application of eco-design principles and guidelines result in solutions that slightly differ from previous ones. Although the environmental advantages of new solutions are evident, the extent of achieved benefits fails to pursue the objectives of sustainable development. The latter requires disruptive change and the contextual demise of old generations of products with worse environmental performance. This is made possible just when environmental friendly product transformations positively capture the social and the economic dimension too, as these are accompanied by changes in people's habits and fueled by customer satisfaction. However, few enterprises are available to engage in radical innovation, as it is generally understood as a risky endeavor. The situation is made more complicated by the relatively poor availability of design methods that target radical product redesign. Proactive design methods and thinking strategies are commonly in play when substantial design changes are expected, but no standard methodological reference has been established so far. Based on theoretical reflections and literature evidence, the paper outlines the need for new knowledge, as the foundation of new methodological frameworks to enable the design of products whose environmental, social, and economic sustainability is ensured.

Keywords: Design methods , Eco-design , Radical innovation

Structured approaches to diminishing products' environmental footprint include the identification of hotspots, e.g., lifecycle phases or aspects that feature criticalities in terms of environmental sustainability. Still in these approaches, measures are taken consistently by investing eco-design efforts to improve the situation in the identified hotspots. However, many products implement eco-design principles irrespective of hotspots, i.e., without taking into account the major sources of environmental footprint. A sample of products has been analyzed in terms of hotspots, and lifecycle stages are affected by the implementation of eco-design principles and achieved success. The study reveals that, while eco-design principles in the use phase of the product favor success, the consistency between the hotspot and the lifecycle stage does not modulate the relationship between implemented eco-design principles and success. As a result, while the identification of hotspots is a best practice as for the attempt to maximize environmental benefits brought on by eco-design initiatives, it plays a limited role in terms of customer's acceptability and appreciation of new products.

Keywords: Eco-design principles , Lifecycle hotspots , Success

The article describes a new bio-inspired method for the Advanced Treatment of Industrial Sludge with a Closed Cycle Drying Process. This process represents an innovative way of treating sludge and other shovelable residues deriving from sludge treatment with centrifuges and other industrial processes taking place in large installations, such as refineries, steel mills, chemical plants, glass processing installations, cosmetics manufacturing facilities, pharmaceutical plants. The process is under development within the research project TAFIPACC funded by Horizon 2020. In particular, the process allows retraining Industrial Sludge into construction materials using the new Closed Cycle Drying Process. The study deals with sludge produced by an industrial treatment plant/industrial discharges and civil waste water in the industrial area of Priolo Gargallo (SR) Esso-Erg-Enichem petrochemical plants and by the municipalities of Priolo Gargallo, and Melilli. The plants produce about 30 cubic meters of sludge per day, disposed of 50% in underground dumps and for the other 50% in hazardous and non hazardous waste recovery plants. The difficulty in the treatment is mainly due to the nature of these muds, as pasty and difficult to mix with additives (cement, limestone, H2O, granulometric mix). The presence of bad odours derives from light and heavy hydrocarbons, aromatics, and organic solvents (benzene, toluene, styrene, xylene, etc), causing some problems to operators and inhabitants living in the areas surrounding the plants.

Keywords: Bio-inspired , De-pollution , Process design , Recycling , Sludge treatment

Nowadays, although the lithium-ion batteries have been widely applied in the context of electric vehicles for passengers, lead-acid batteries are still prevalent in motive-power applications, such as electric pallet jacks and laser guided vehicles. The battery cost is the main disadvantage that limits the employment of lithium-ion solutions in such applications. Several strategies for reducing the battery life cycle cost have been discussed in the scientific literature. The opportunity charging is one of them, even though it is suitable only for batteries having high lifecycles and high charging/discharging rates, such as the Lithium Titanium Oxide ones. This paper aims at assessing a feasible solution to reduce the life cycle cost of the energy storage units for laser guided vehicles. A tool has been proposed to analyze the Total Cost of Ownership of batteries, under the adoption of an opportunity charging strategy. Simulations of energy consumption have also been included, to predict the battery cycles and the operation costs. The life cycle analysis has investigated the use of a compacted Lithium Titanium Oxide battery in comparison with a traditional lead-acid battery. The results have shown the feasibility of the Lithium Titanium Oxide solution and its economic advantage in an industrial context.

Keywords: Laser guided vehicle , Li-ion batteries , LTO , Opportunity charging , Total cost of ownership

Both economic and environmental aspects significantly influence the design process since the early phases of preliminary design. The total Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the End of Life (EoL) of products have to be defined in the early design phases too but, for industrial products that are not feasible to automatic production, they are hard issues. However, the EoL of products can be assessed by evaluating the disassembly of joints assembling the product, even when the production process is subject to an important contribute of workmanship. In this paper, a useful method is proposed to analyze the disassembly plant of products, in order to optimize the design process in the early preliminary phases. The method quantitatively evaluates a Disassembly Index that describes the attitude of a product to be disassembled. A case study describes the disassembly attitude of structural subassemblies of a sailboat. In order to test the applicability of the model described to both manual and automated disassembly, a further application of the method is proposed on a Computer CPU. As result, the model demonstrated good sensitiveness to the testing of products quite different for dimensions, number of components, manufacturing processes and, in all cases, it quantified the disassembly easiness with good relevance.

Keywords: disassembly , handcraft , non-destructive , quantitative , reusing

The eco-design of industrial products is a complex task that requires a high level of expertise in environmental science and a very large amount of data about the product under development. Product data for eco-design are not limited to geometrical and technical aspects; they also include information related to the product life cycle. The present paper aims to define a life cycle standard data model (LCSDM) that manages and shares life cycle information along the product development process. The LCSDM is defined as a common and structured framework for data collection in comparative evaluations. The need of a “standard” data model emerges in the context of life cycle assessment (LCA), mainly due to the subjectivity related to the life cycle inventory phase. The standard structure of the LCSDM facilitates the interoperability of eco-design software tools by creating a common framework for the implementation of eco-design initiatives inside product manufacturing companies. The LCSDM is a data structure that is able to represent the relationships among parts and assemblies. Each part or assembly is defined by a set of nodes that characterize the life cycle phases (e.g., Material, Manufacturing, Use, End-of-life, and Transport). A list of attributes is identified according to the environmental features that describe the product life cycle. The LCSDM structure is implemented in an encoding document for data sharing through a generic software language (e.g., XML – eXtensible Markup Language). The implementation of the proposed LCSDM in the design department of a manufacturing company using an eco-design software platform leads to the following benefits: (i) the fulfilment of the LCSDM (XML file) along the product development process, (ii) the use of a unique standard for data sharing among the several eco-design software tools, and (iii) the creation of a robust framework for life cycle assessment. The main drawback of the proposed LCSDM is related to the initial effort required to set up the design software platform (which consists of both standard and eco-design tools) to be able to read, fill, store and share the LCSDM.

Keywords: Data-exchange , Eco-design , Environmental analysis , Inter-operability , Life cycle inventory , Product life cycle