Methods for the environmental and economic assessment in early product design – a case study-based overview for wind turbines in urban areas

Abstract

The assessment of environmental impacts has become an inevitable necessity for many manufacturing companies – not only from a mere retrospective viewpoint but also for product design decisions. At the same time, economic feasibility must be constantly considered throughout all product design phases. For both dimensions, many different decision-support methods exist. However, there is a lack of combined assessment methods especially in early product design phases, when product characteristics, manufacturing technologies and corresponding data are still uncertain. The paper provides an overview and qualitative evaluation of different methods for economic and ecological assessment in product design stages. Based on this, a generalized procedure for combined economic and ecological decision-making during product design is derived, highlighting possible coping mechanisms for uncertain or insufficient data. Both, the evaluation of available assessment methods as well as the derived procedure are transferred to the specific requirements of wind turbines in urban areas. As a result, open research aspects and the next steps for method development are derived.