The concept of 'sustainable development', introduced for the first time in the report 'Our Common Future' and promoted as a common aim for the entire world, can be defined as 'a development that satisfies the needs of today without compromising the possibility of future generations to fulfill their needs.' Thus far, this concept has been considered as visionary and therefore difficult for companies to implement into concrete plans of action. However, various suggestions have been proposed, such as dematerialization, ecoefficiency and remanufacturing. However, another solution is perhaps more or less a consequence of today's prevalent trend towards a more service-oriented society, and with a focus on the value (satisfaction) that products provide their users through their functionality. The shift from a manufacturing-centered economy towards a service-centered economy have the potential to result in a reduction of the mass consumption of natural resources. Sustainable development is, in a company perspective, not only related directly to environmental issues, as in the definition above, but also in the company's capacity for sustainable market competition. The sharp and rapid increase in global raw material prices, however, is a threat to this; one way to decrease this influence is to reduce the need for raw materials.

The objectives of this paper are twofold: to identify engineering designers utilization of Design for Environment (DfE) methods and tools, and to investigate what basic design-related requirements a DfE method or tool should fulfill in order to become actively used in industry among engineering designers. Most of the requirements for designers are related to their aims of fulfilling product performance and minimizing development time. There are four major requirements that a DfE method or tool, as well as a common method or tool, must exhibit. First, it must be easy to adopt and implement; second, it must facilitate designers to fulfill specified requirements on the presumptive product. Third, it must reduce the risk that important elements in the product development phase are forgotten. The two latter requirements relate to a method or tool's degree of appropriateness, but also to the fourth requirement, which is considered here the most important: that the use of the method or tool must reduce the total calendar time (from start to end) to solve the task. The conclusion is that DfE methods and tools must be designed to better comply with its main users - in this case the designers

This paper describes experiences from several years of DfE studies at different manufacturing companies, as well as their strategies for approaching DfE. The general experience from the authors is that in order to make DfE truly utilized, it must become a "living part" of the company. To reach this point, it is important to obtain a strong commitment not only from the manufacturing company's management, but also from other DfE stakeholders throughout the company, at both the strategic and operational levels. DfE initiatives must be considered as a strategic issue and an investment in increased competitiveness. When summarizing all the experiences presented in this paper, a conclusion is that manufacturing companies often have a need for a general model that focuses on how to make "DfE thinking" a natural part of the company's way of doing business

This paper is based on an Internet-based questionnaire survey with both qualitative and quantitative questions was selected as the research method in order to collect data about designer-s experience of their used design methods and tools. The result is that the general formal follow-up and reflection on used design methods and tools is experienced as low and this implies a risk that inefficient design methods and tools are used. Even though design method and tool utilization represents more than half of the total working time, the number of different types of utilized design methods and tools are low. Despite the low degree of formal follow up, designers experience that most utilized design methods and tools to a high degree fulfills their experienced needs and contributes in making the final product better. Finally, the reasons why designers use design methods and tools can be concluded in three interlinked major overall reasons for designers to use design methods and tools. The design method or tool must - help to fulfill specified requirements of the prospective product, - reduce the risk that important moments in the product development process are forgotten, - reduce the total calendar time (from start to end) to solve the design task.

In today’s society products are being made and used to a constantly increasing extent. In addition there is also a never-ending flow of new products. Products that earlier generations would have never dreamt of. The new products are constantly trying to fill the needs and demands of our society.

These products are directly or indirectly causing environmental problems. The growing population’s increasing use of, and need for, these products results in larger and more complex environmental issues.

A growing knowledge of the connection between products and environmental problems has resulted in an increasing interest in these issues, from both businesses and the public, during the last ten years. To reduce the effects on the environment they try to apply an holistic perspective to the products, i.e. regard the entire life-cycle of the product.

It is the early phase of the product development that, to the greatest extent, determines the total environmental effect of a product. It is therefore important that the environmental aspects are taken into consideration in this critical phase so that the effects on the environment can be reduced.

This book presents Environment Effect Analysis (EEA), which is a qualitative method for Design for Environment, DfE. The method is designed for use in the early phases of product development. The advantages with the EEA method are that it is easy to learn, relatively fast to carry out and results in suggestions for concrete environmental improvements.

I dagens samhälle tillverkas och används produkter i en ständigt ökande omfattning. Det tillkommer även hela tiden mängder med nya produkter som tidigare generationer aldrig skulle kunnat drömma om. De nya produkterna försöker hela tiden uppfylla de behov som finns i samhället.

Produkterna ger direkt eller indirekt upphov till miljöproblem. Den växande befolkningens ökade användning och behov av produkter gör att miljöproblemen blir allt mer omfattande och komplexa.

En växande insikt om kopplingen mellan produkter och miljöproblem har resulterat i att samhällets och företagens intresse för dessa frågor ökat starkt  under det senaste decenniet. För att minska miljöpåverkan försöker man se  på produkterna ur ett holistiskt perspektiv, dvs hela produktens livscykel beaktas.

Det är produktutvecklingens tidiga faser som till största delen bestämmer en produkts totala miljöpåverkan. Det är följaktligen viktigt att miljöaspekterna kommer in i dessa faser så att miljöpåverkan kan minskas.

Denna bok presenterar Miljöeffektanalys (EEA), som är en kvalitativ metod för miljöanpassad produktutveckling. Metoden är utvecklad för att kunna användas i produktutvecklingens tidiga faser. Fördelarna med EEA metoden är  att den är enkel att lära sig, går relativt snabbt att genomföra och resulterar i förslag på konkreta miljöförbättringar.