Abstract
Ecodesign offers significant potential to reduce the environmental impacts of products. Whilst some integration of environmental considerations into design occurs in progressive companies when engineering the product, this only represents a small share of the possible design interventions to improve the environmental performance of products. For example, developing new product concepts to fulfill needs in a less environmentally harmful way and considering user related aspects offers a large, currently under-realized potential. This paper identifies industrial design (ID) consultancies as potential agents to tackle this issue on a strategic and operational basis. The extent to which this potential is currently applied was assessed by conducting a content analysis of websites of ID consultancies in Australia, China, and Germany. How ID consultancies represent their ecodesign practice is country-specific. Despite the differences, some ID consultancies in all countries announce and/or show the capability to develop completely new concepts and to influence user related factors to improve environmental performance. This shows their potential to address current shortcomings in ecodesign practice. As ID consultancies embracing that potential still are a minority, further research should be directed to a deeper examination of barriers and stimuli for ID consultancies to take up ecodesign.
Highlights
Ecodesign offers significant potential to reduce the environmental impacts of products
The share of industrial design (ID) consultancies, supplementing these services with services for the product planning phase and are titled as holistic is similar in Germany and Australia
A significant amount of ID consultancies represents themselves in a position where they have direct influence on the product planning phase, where it is crucial to implement ecodesign
Summary
Ecodesign offers significant potential to reduce the environmental impacts of products. Some ID consultancies in all countries announce and/or show the capability to develop completely new concepts and to influence user related factors to improve environmental performance. This shows their potential to address current shortcomings in ecodesign practice. New product design or even the development of completely new concepts requires radical or fundamental innovation. In the context of the aim of sustainable development, Manzini and Vezzoli and Crul et al point out that while incremental innovation is important, only radical and fundamental can sufficiently reduce the environmental impact [6,8]
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