Summary and conclusions, Miljøstyrelsen

Environmental concern in design and product development

Summary and conclusions

The project "Environmental concern in design and product development" began in January 2001 and ended in November 2002. The project is financed by the Environmental Council of Cleaner Products and is carried out by Danish Design Centre and PlanMiljø in co-operation with a number of design-companies all over Denmark. The project carries the title "The Design and Environmental Project" with the shortening "DEMI"

The aim of the project has been to increase designers, product-developers and companies attention regarding the possibilities of incorporation of environmental concerns in the development of products. One of the greatest challenges of the project has been to create an understanding about the substantial environmental benefits which can be achieved by incorporating environmental concerns in the product-development before a task is formulated and the specifications of a product is determined.

The result of the project is presented on the web-site www.ddc.dk/demi on the homepage of Danish Design Centre. Forwards Danish Design Centre will be the host of the web-site.

The tools on the web-site are aiming to inspire and motivate to include environmental concerns in design and product-development. An inquiry of the needs and continuous contact with the target group has exposed a need of visual oriented tools.

The tools and the knowledge-part on the web-site is developed on ongoing assistance and discussions with more then ten Danish design companies and product-developers plus their customers; the production-companies.

The involvement of the target group has been based on two workshops. On these workshops the design-companies, companies and other interested have together with Danish Design Centre and PlanMiljø, examined the need of tools in the specific stages of design- and product-development.

This dialog has continued by discussions with the designers concerning previous development-developments. In practice the preceding development of tools has been based on that the design-companies have been given drafts of the tools for use in their everyday work. On the basis of this the designers have made suggestions to improvements and pointed out the needs of new tools.