Representation of Ecodesign Practice: International Comparison of Industrial Design Consultancies

Johannes Behrisch, Mariano Ramirez and Damien Giurco
Additional contact information
Johannes Behrisch: Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Level 11, UTS Building 10, 235 Jones Street, Ultimo NSW 2007, Australia
Mariano Ramirez: Industrial Design Program, Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australia
Damien Giurco: Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Level 11, UTS Building 10, 235 Jones Street, Ultimo NSW 2007, Australia

Sustainability, 2011, vol. 3, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Ecodesign offers significant potential to reduce the environmental impacts of products. Whilst some integration of environmental considerations into design occurs in progressive companies when engineering the product, this only represents a small share of the possible design interventions to improve the environmental performance of products. For example, developing new product concepts to fulfill needs in a less environmentally harmful way and considering user related aspects offers a large, currently under-realized potential. This paper identifies industrial design (ID) consultancies as potential agents to tackle this issue on a strategic and operational basis. The extent to which this potential is currently applied was assessed by conducting a content analysis of websites of ID consultancies in Australia, China, and Germany. How ID consultancies represent their ecodesign practice is country-specific. Despite the differences, some ID consultancies in all countries announce and/or show the capability to develop completely new concepts and to influence user related factors to improve environmental performance. This shows their potential to address current shortcomings in ecodesign practice. As ID consultancies embracing that potential still are a minority, further research should be directed to a deeper examination of barriers and stimuli for ID consultancies to take up ecodesign.

Keywords: ecodesign practice; industrial design; design consultancies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1778/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1778/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:3:y:2011:i:10:p:1778-1791:d:14263

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().