Sustainable Product Design and Development

Book excerpt: This book outlines the process of sustainable product design and development. It presents design guidelines that help prolong the life of a product and minimize its environmental impact. These guidelines specifically enable product design for end-of-life (EoL) objectives such as reuse, recycling and remanufacturing. Sustainable Product Design and Development also presents mathematical models that will help the designer determine the cost of designing sustainable products. This cost can be computed early during the design stage of a product. Sustainable Product Design and Development presents different ways and means by which a product can address all three pillars of sustainability—environmental conservation, social sustainability, and economic sustainability. Various case studies are incorporated in different chapters. Case studies on designing products for assembly, disassembly and remanufacturing have been presented in their respective chapters. The book also provides an overview of global environmental legislation to help the reader grasp the importance of waste management and sustainable product design. This book is aimed at professionals, engineering students, environmental scientists, and those in the business environment.