Contribution to the characterisation of eco-design projects
Résumé
Lots of eco-designed projects were carried out successfully, and eco-designed products are now on the market. However, it is very difficult for designers and engineers to compare their design projects to those already done and consequently to reuse the knowledge gained. In a more general perspective, a method to take advantage of previous experiences in eco-design is needed. This paper is a contribution to develop a standard for eco-design practices and proposes a framework to characterise both eco-design projects and eco-tools. Forty case studies from the literature were exploited to extract criteria and options to define the framework. The proposed usage-oriented classification of eco-tools, associated with the practical analysis frame of the design projects, was implemented and finally robust enough to characterise 40 projects.