Senior Manager of Environmental Affairs

Over the last decade, we have witnessed increasing recognition of the importance of products and product systems as a target for both corporate environmental strategy and government environmental policy. This has led to the development of a number of concepts and tools that enable organizations to evaluate and improve the environmental performance of product systems. Concepts and tools that explicitly focus on products include: design for environment, life cycle assessment, sustainable design, green procurement, and life cycle engineering The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges of implementing one of the leading conceptual approaches for evaluating and improving product systems, namely sustainable design A complex, and often confusing set of factors influence the evolution and integration of sustainable design and design for environment (DfE) in organizations. Responding to these factors requires an understanding and sensitivity to the organization’s internal culture, existing systems, initiatives, its market and stakeholders (to name a few). Unfortunately there are few guidelines or frameworks for understanding these factors and designing/implementing successful sustainable design and DfE programs. The goa