Title: Adapting innovation tools to the eco-innovation requirements of industry: case study results

Authors: Jamie O'Hare, Elies Dekoninck, Christopher McMahon, Aidan Turnbull

Addresses: Innovative Design and Manufacturing Research Centre, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Bath, Bath, Somerset, BA2 7AY, UK. ' Innovative Design and Manufacturing Research Centre, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Bath, Bath, Somerset, BA2 7AY, UK. ' Innovative Design and Manufacturing Research Centre, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Bath, Bath, Somerset, BA2 7AY, UK. ' Environ UK Ltd., Box House, Box, Wiltshire, SN13 8AA, UK

Abstract: Despite the proliferation of eco-design and eco-innovation tools emerging from academia in the last 20 years, the uptake of such tools remains poor with usage limited to a few specific niche areas. In this paper, how eco-innovation tools could gain |mainstream| popularity is considered, and it is proposed that adapting eco-innovation tools to the specific requirements of companies and their designers is the key to improve their adoption by industry. A tool adaptation and implementation process is introduced. Results from the industrial application of this process within one of six case-study companies from the electrical and electronic equipment industry are presented. The results reveal that design teams are willing and able to engage in the process of adapting eco-innovation tools to better suit their needs; that the co-development of tool evaluation metrics is a useful part of this process; and that the current understanding of designers requirements for eco-design tools may not be directly applicable in the case of eco-innovation tools.

Keywords: eco-design; eco-innovation; product development; product design; innovation tools; designer requirements; green design; design engineering; tool adaptation; electrical and electronic equipment; performance evaluation; performance measurement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDE.2010.034863

International Journal of Design Engineering, 2010 Vol.3 No.2, pp.172 - 194

Published online: 25 Aug 2010 *

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