A design for the environment methodology to support an environmental management system

The demand for more stringent environmental regulation on product end-of-life and production processes is enhanced by customer concerns for environmental protection. This has increased the need for industry to address environmental issues in the product design process. The emergence of international standards for environmental management, such as the ISO 14000 series, has also created a strong incentive for manufacturers to promote environmentally conscious products and processes. Considerable progress has been made in design for the environment (DFE). However, there is still a need for a structured approach to DFE that addresses environmental concerns in a coherent way. This approach should also support an environmental management system (EMS). This paper describes an organised process to address the problem of integrating environmental concerns into an early product design process that is consistent with such international standards as ISO 14001 EMS. This approach may help to improve the environmental performance of a product and to support an organisation's EMS.