Design for Environment
Encyclopedia
Design for the Environment Program (DfE) is a United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...

 (USEPA) program, created in 1992, that works to prevent pollution, and the risk pollution presents to humans and the environment. The EPA DfE program provides information regarding safer electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

, safer flame retardants, safer chemical formulations
Chemical substance
In chemistry, a chemical substance is a form of matter that has constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. It cannot be separated into components by physical separation methods, i.e. without breaking chemical bonds. They can be solids, liquids or gases.Chemical substances are...

, as well as best environmental practices. DfE employs a variety of design approaches that attempt to reduce the overall human health and environmental impact of a product, process or service, where impacts are considered across its life cycle. Different software tools have been developed to assist designers in finding optimized products (or processes/services).
The three main goals of DfE are:
  • Promoting green cleaning
    Green cleaning
    Green cleaning refers to using cleaning methods and products with environmentally-friendly ingredients to preserve human health and environmental quality...

     and recognizing safer consumer and industrial and institutional products through safer product labeling.
  • Defining Best Practices in areas ranging from auto refinishing to nail salon safety.
  • Identifying safer chemicals, including life cycle considerations, through Alternatives Assessment.


To learn more about DfE, watch: http://www.epa.gov/dfe/multimedia/recognizedforsaferchemistry/dfe_video_popup.html

Design for Environment

There are three main concepts that fall under the Design for Environment umbrella:
  • Design for environmental processing and manufacturing: This ensures that raw material extraction
    Resource extraction
    The related terms natural resource extraction both refer to the practice of locating, acquiring and selling natural resources....

     (mining, drilling, etc.), processing (processing reusable materials, metal melting, etc.) and manufacturing
    Manufacturing
    Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...

     are done using materials and processes which are not dangerous to the environment or the employees working on said processes. This includes the minimization of waste and hazardous by-products, air pollution, energy expenditure and other factors.
  • Design for environmental packaging: This ensures that the materials used in packaging are environmentally friendly, which can be achieved through the reuse of shipping products, elimination of unnecessary paper and packaging products, efficient use of materials and space, use of recycled
    Recycling
    Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...

     and/or recyclable materials.
  • Design for disposal or reuse: The end-of-life of a product is very important, because some products emit dangerous chemicals into the air, ground and water after they are disposed of in a landfill. Planning for the reuse
    Reuse
    To reuse is to use an item more than once. This includes conventional reuse where the item is used again for the same function, and new-life reuse where it is used for a different function. In contrast, recycling is the breaking down of the used item into raw materials which are used to make new...

     or refurbishing of a product will change the types of materials that would be used, how they could later be disassembled and reused, and the environmental impacts such materials have.


Life cycle assessment
Life cycle assessment
A life-cycle assessment is a technique to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product's life from-cradle-to-grave A life-cycle assessment (LCA, also known as life-cycle analysis, ecobalance, and cradle-to-grave analysis) is a technique to assess environmental impacts...

 (LCA) is employed to forecast the impacts of different (production) alternatives of the product in question, thus being able to choose the most environmentally friendly
Environmentally friendly
Environmentally friendly are terms used to refer to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies claimed to inflict minimal or no harm on the environment....

. A life cycle analysis can serve as a tool when determining the environmental impact of a product or process. Proper LCAs can help a designer compare several different products according to several categories, such as energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

 use, toxicity
Toxicity
Toxicity is the degree to which a substance can damage a living or non-living organisms. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a substructure of the organism, such as a cell or an organ , such as the liver...

, acidification, CO2 emissions
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

, ozone depletion
Ozone depletion
Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...

, resource depletion
Resource depletion
Resource depletion is an economic term referring to the exhaustion of raw materials within a region. Resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources...

 and many others. By comparing different products, designers can make decisions about which environmental hazard to focus on in order to make the product more environmentally friendly.

Safer Product Labeling Program

DfE certifies green cleaning
Green cleaning
Green cleaning refers to using cleaning methods and products with environmentally-friendly ingredients to preserve human health and environmental quality...

 products through its Safer Product Labeling Program. This program offers an opportunity to product manufacturers to partner with DfE and have their products certified by DfE criteria and standards. The DfE scientific review team screens each ingredient in a cleaning product for potential human health and environmental effects based on the best currently available information, EPA predictive models, and expert judgment. DfE recognized products that contain only those ingredients that pose the least concern among chemicals in their class. There are currently 2,000 DfE certified cleaning products.

Alternatives Assessment Program

In order to help industries choose safer chemicals for applications, DfE conducts Alternatives Assessments. This program brings together environmental organizations, industry leaders, academia, and others to evaluate the environmental and health impacts of potential alternatives to problematic chemicals. The program uses a variety of approaches to investigate safer chemistries. Life-cycle assessment can be conducted to understand the phases (e.g., production, use, and disposal) where industry can make changes to realize environmental and health benefits. DfE Hazard-based Alternatives Analyses evaluate the hazards posed by chemicals during relevant phases in the product life cycle. These approaches can be applied to identifying safer alternative chemicals for applications that now use priority chemicals of concern. The outcome of an Alternatives Assessments Partnership provides industry with the information they need to choose safer chemicals, as well as avoid unintended consequences of switching to a poorly understood substitute.

Best Practices Approach

DfE's Best Practices approach is designed to enhance the awareness of health and environmental concerns, minimize pollution, and protect workers and communities by promoting the use of safer alternative chemical products and cleaner, more efficient practices. After a chemical ingredient has been reviewed by a DfE Alternatives Assessment and no clear alternative is available, the industry is encouraged to use the Best Practices approach as formulated by DfE. Currently, there is a Best Practices approach for both the Automotive Refinishing industry and Spray Polyurethane Foam.

See also

  • Biodiversity
    Biodiversity
    Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

  • Conservation movement
    Conservation movement
    The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....

  • Design Impact Measures
    Design Impact Measures
    Design impact measures are used to qualify projects for various rating systems and to guide both design and regulatory decisions from beginning to end. Some like the greenhouse gas inventory may also be required globally for all business decisions...

  • Ecodesign
    Ecodesign
    Ecodesign is an approach to design of a product with special consideration for the environmental impacts of the product during its whole lifecycle. In a life cycle assessment the life cycle of a product is usually divided into procurement, manufacture, use and disposal.Ecodesign is a growing...

  • Environmental design
    Environmental design
    Environmental design is the process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products...

  • Environmental movement
    Environmental movement
    The environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....


  • Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
    Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
    Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....

  • Life Cycle Assessment
    Life cycle assessment
    A life-cycle assessment is a technique to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product's life from-cradle-to-grave A life-cycle assessment (LCA, also known as life-cycle analysis, ecobalance, and cradle-to-grave analysis) is a technique to assess environmental impacts...

  • Natural environment
    Natural environment
    The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....

  • Sustainable design
    Sustainable design
    Sustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability.-Intentions:The intention of sustainable design is to "eliminate negative environmental...

  • Sustainability
    Sustainability
    Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...



External links

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