Proposal of an Ecodesign Assessment Methodology by Using a Weighted Checklist

Author(s):  
Yusuke Kishita ◽  
Bi Hong Low ◽  
Shinichi Fukushige ◽  
Yasushi Umeda ◽  
Atsushi Suzuki ◽  
...  

Environmentally conscious design or ecodesign plays one of the most important roles to create products with less environmental impact targeting the sustainable society. Manufactures often use checklists to support design improvements of products and to obtain eco-labels, such as Eco Mark in Japan. Current checklists are, however, insufficient to support designing products rationally because the relationship between the individual requirements of current checklists and environmental impact is undetermined. This paper proposes a method for supporting ecodesign assessment by developing a weighted checklist from a conventional checklist. This weighted checklist calculates ecodesign achievement based on the potential environmental improvement of each requirement, derived by the life cycle simulation. The result of a case study involving a digital duplicator showed the proposed method successfully clarified requirements that should be improved in the present product. When design improvements are applied, the assessment of the product’s CO2 emission is improved by 8%.

2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Kishita ◽  
Bi Hong Low ◽  
Shinichi Fukushige ◽  
Yasushi Umeda ◽  
Atsushi Suzuki ◽  
...  

The manufacturing industry is faced with a challenge to create products with less environmental impact targeting a sustainable society. To cope with this challenge, sustainable design or ecodesign plays one of the most important roles. Manufacturers often use ecodesign checklists that are intended for obtaining eco-labels, such as Eco Mark in Japan, in order to support design improvements of products in terms of environmental consciousness. Eco-label checklists are, however, insufficient to support designing products rationally because the relationships between individual requirements of checklists and environmental impact are undetermined. This paper proposes a method for supporting assessment for ecodesign by developing a weighted checklist from a conventional eco-label checklist. This weighted checklist assesses the environmental performance of a product based on the potential environmental improvement of each requirement, derived by life cycle simulation. Results of a case study involving a digital duplicator indicate that the proposed method successfully clarifies the requirements that should be improved in the present product. When the design improvements are applied, the assessment of the product’s CO2 emissions shows an improvement by 8%.


Author(s):  
Dulce Maria Holanda Maciel ◽  
Luísa Córdova Wandscheer ◽  
Daniela Novelli

Thinking about innovations that reduce environmental impact and offer quality consumer goods is a way of proposing a future scenario governed by eco-efficiency values. Through an exploratory bibliographic and documentary research, which qualitatively analyses Kombucha authors and fermenters, this article seeks to identify the relationship between biomimetics and bacterial fabric production as an eco-efficient product in the fashion market chain. The general objective of this case study is to explain the fermentation process to encourage the search for raw materials inserted in the sustainability proposal.


1999 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
K.N. Davie ◽  
T.A. Winters

This paper discusses the relationship between the Aboriginal heritage clearance process and the environmental impact assessment process. The current Western Australian legislation and the Murrin Murrin nickel project and other Western Australian projects are used as a case study, although similar methods and issues are applicable to most states within Australia. The paper investigates areas where delays may occur and proposes a model which can be implemented to maximise the level of certainty for a project.


Author(s):  
Xueqing Qian ◽  
Hong-Chao Zhang ◽  
Bingbing Li

With increasing environmental regulations and waste management costs, environmentally conscious design and manufacturing (ECDM) and surplus asset recovery are becoming a more attractive approach to solve environmental problems. Any company that owns a collection of PCs, printers and other electronic accessories probably needs to manage these assets more effectively, but currently there is a lack of tools for effective management. Therefore, this paper discusses, from the viewpoint of an enterprise dealing with end-of-life electronic products, the recycling processes according to literature, and derives an integrated model on surplus asset management and environmental impact analysis. The primary objective of the model is to develop a certain tool for managing surplus asset within a corporate office and generate a decision making tool for those who are concerned with the environmental issues in the design or recycling phase. Based on this model, a prototype system is introduced in detail in this paper.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 316-344
Author(s):  
BEATRICE I. BONAFÉ

AbstractInternational criminal law provides a particularly interesting case study for the proliferation of legal orders as it helps to understand the types of uncertainties their interaction may entail with respect to the position of the individual as well as the solutions that may be adopted in that respect. This article analyses a selected number of substantive and procedural uncertainties that originate in the relationship between international criminal law and domestic legal orders. The purpose of the discussion is to identify the particular legal devices that have been elaborated in order to ensure the coordination between these legal orders, and to suggest areas in which a better coordination is still to be achieved.


2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ding Xiaowei

AbstractThe existing literature has revealed that Problem-based Learning (PBL) can improve the cognitive competence of learners, but few studies focus on L2 learning from the perspective of students, or on the relationship between PBL and linguistic cognition. Based on students’ reflective journals, the researcher’s observation notes, and interviews with teachers and students, this case study describes the individual and collective self-negotiations during a Problem-Based L2 Learning (PBLL) practice of 157 non-English majors at three universities in Beijing. The current study makes a distinction between surface and deep self-negotiations, and confirms the conception of the self-negotiated L2 cognition of PBLL learners. The research results show (1) that the self-negotiation is a consistent feature of PBLL because the whole PBLL process comprises the cyclic intertwining of individual and collective self-negotiations, (2) that L2 learners manage to achieve individual and collective self-negotiations through cognitive mechanisms of linking, riffling and converging, and (3) that deep self-negotiations in PBLL are more dynamic, interactive, and generative. Pedagogical implications, research limitations, and future directions are also discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huifang Jiao ◽  
Lamei Qian ◽  
Tianzhuo Liu ◽  
Lijun Ma

Whereas the effect of people’s motivations to give to traditional, off-line charities has been extensively investigated, their motivations to support online charitable crowdfunding projects are largely unexplored. The present study examines the influences of extrinsic motivations (such as reputation, the wish to signal a certain image; and reciprocity, the expectation on future return for their present contribution), intrinsic motivations (such as a sense of belonging, the feeling of belonging to an integral part of a positive community; joy of giving, the anticipated positive emotions experienced by helping others; altruism, intrinsic desire to help others without expectation of a return; and financial constraints, individuals’ personally felt financial stresses induced by donations), and social interactions (such as social influence, people’s perception of how their close acquaintances believe they should support the project; and social ties, the strength of the relationship between the individual and the project initiator) on intentions to support charitable crowdfunding behaviors, namely, the willingness to share (WTS) project information and the intention to donate (ITD) money. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses on self-reported survey data from 617 respondents in China reveal support for the hypotheses. The results show that intrinsic motivations and social ties are predictors for both supporting behaviors. Reputation and social influence motivate people to share projects, but have no significant effects on their ITD. Reciprocity is positively, and financial constraints are negatively, related to ITD but have no significant effects on WTS. These findings offer insights into the motivations driving individuals’ participation in charitable crowdfunding. The implications for both platforms and fundraisers are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (12) ◽  
pp. 6479-6494
Author(s):  
Felix S. Fauer ◽  
Jana Ulrich ◽  
Oscar E. Jurado ◽  
Henning W. Rust

Abstract. Assessing the relationship between the intensity, duration, and frequency (IDF) of extreme precipitation is required for the design of water management systems. However, when modeling sub-daily precipitation extremes, there are commonly only short observation time series available. This problem can be overcome by applying the duration-dependent formulation of the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution which fits an IDF model with a range of durations simultaneously. The originally proposed duration-dependent GEV model exhibits a power-law-like behavior of the quantiles and takes care of a deviation from this scaling relation (curvature) for sub-hourly durations (Koutsoyiannis et al., 1998). We suggest that a more flexible model might be required to model a wide range of durations (1 min to 5 d). Therefore, we extend the model with the following two features: (i) different slopes for different quantiles (multiscaling) and (ii) the deviation from the power law for large durations (flattening), which is newly introduced in this study. Based on the quantile skill score, we investigate the performance of the resulting flexible model with respect to the benefit of the individual features (curvature, multiscaling, and flattening) with simulated and empirical data. We provide detailed information on the duration and probability ranges for which specific features or a systematic combination of features leads to improvements for stations in a case study area in the Wupper catchment (Germany). Our results show that allowing curvature or multiscaling improves the model only for very short or long durations, respectively, but leads to disadvantages in modeling the other duration ranges. In contrast, allowing flattening on average leads to an improvement for medium durations between 1 h and 1 d, without affecting other duration regimes. Overall, the new parametric form offers a flexible and enhanced performance model for consistently describing IDF relations over a wide range of durations, which has not been done before as most existing studies focus on durations longer than 1 h or day and do not address the deviation from the power law for very long durations (2–5 d).


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