A preventive approach to environmental problems, eco-design is a product-centric approach that can be applied in all sectors of the economy. Today, it is implemented to varying degrees and with a wide variety of tools in many sectors such as electronics, automotive, aeronautics, equipment products and most large-scale products. The Green Exam is the best platform when you are going for exams regarding the environmental and energy saving.

What is that?

Eco-design consists of integrating environmental protection from the design of goods or services. Its objective is to reduce the environmental impacts of products throughout their life cycle: extraction of raw materials, production, distribution, use and end of life. It is characterized by a global vision of these environmental impacts: it is a multi-stage approach (taking into account the various stages of the life cycle) and multi-criteria (taking into account the consumption of material and energy, discharges into the natural environment, effects on climate and biodiversity).

Eco-design is implemented by a company or a public body, but it involves a large number of actors throughout the product value chain and even beyond, including consumers or users and up to ” waste pickers and recyclers. Its richness lies in examining the relationships that exist between the design choices relating to a product and the flows of matter and energy that result from it throughout its life cycle. In case of the Green Associate Exam you will need to learn about these things. There are options to be ready as well.

What are the benefits of eco-design?

Environmental gains

Eco-design brings environmental gains which can concern the preservation of resources and biodiversity, the prevention of pollution and nuisances, the climate balance, the destination of soils. Following an eco-design approach relating to a product, it is common to be able to observe reductions in environmental impact of between 10% and 40% for several indicators (out of a total of a dozen indicators generally calculated in life cycle analysis).

Product knowledge

Eco-design brings a new look to products, whatever the trade and the branch concerned. The feedback is consistent: it brings original lessons, “things we did not expect”. The aspects thus discovered are not only environmental, but also relate to the quality of the product, its function, the materials and the technologies used.

A positive effect on synergy in the company and vis-à-vis partners

Eco-design requires the participation of many professions within the company: design, marketing, purchasing, production, quality, responsible for sustainable development. The interesting and motivating nature of eco-design strengthens the synergy between the teams within the company. Because its field of action extends beyond the walls of the company, eco-design leads to new synergies with other players in the sector concerned.

An impact on the cost of the product

Eco-design is above all a process of arbitration between sometimes contradictory objectives: quality, costs, deadlines, security, environment. The first steps in eco-design are often easy and inexpensive to implement. They can coincide with common sense options which lead to a reduction in costs: savings in material (by lightening) or energy consumed, optimization of the logistics chain (filling rate of trucks, cold chain), less quantities of waste treat.

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