Design for Environmentability

Abstract There is a growing interest in making products environmentally more compatible. While there is a need to make products and processes less toxic, to increase recyclability, and to reduce waste; we have to try to achieve environmental friendliness without compromising product quality. This approach to design has come to be called Green Engineering Design. The aim is to identify, develop, and exploit new technologies that can bolster productivity without costing the environment. The idea is to inject concerns about environmental friendliness into the design process; where, the assessment of environmental friendliness is based on a life-cycle view of the product. This includes the product’s manufacturing process, distribution, use, and final disposal. Our approach to green engineering design has two pans: (1) the development of special green indicators — measures of environmental compatibility, and (2) tools that use the green indicators to help designers assess, compare, and make design decisions.