Ecodesign practices in industry: an appraisal of product life cycle design initiatives in SMEs

Abstract

Considering the growing stringency of environmental regulations, manufacturing firms have increasing incentives to consider the environmental impact of their operations and products. This paper addresses issues relating to the concept called ecodesign. This concept incorporates a broad set of practices and know-how emanating from relatively recently emerging and overlapping disciplines such as design for the environment, green design, life cycle product design, and environmentally conscious manufacturing. Ecodesign practices aim at improving products' environmental performance at any stage of the life cycle, without compromising other product attributes such as performance, quality, safety, and cost. Over the past decade or so, the field of product ecodesign has benefited from steady developments and knowledge accumulation. Green product developers now have access to numerous tools, techniques and methodologies supporting them in the integration of environmental issues during the product design process. Unfortunately, environmental innovations usually originate in large manufacturing firms, while most SMEs are still considered as reluctant to embrace ecodesign initiatives. However, despite their small size and limited resources, SMEs contribute actively to global supply chains as suppliers of products, services and innovation. Environmentally proactive SMEs may thus have the built-in capability to respond positively to environmental requirements imposed by their customers or regulators. In this way, they may successfully contribute to improving the environmental performance of the overall supply chain, and consequently may consolidate their competitive stance. On the other hand, lagging SMEs may have difficulties improving their own environmental performance in a timely manner, and thereby risk being excluded from supply chains that are active in environmentally sensitive markets. Based on empirical evidence gathered from a large-scale survey, the objective of this paper is to provide some insights into the level of adoption of ecodesign practices in Canadian SMEs.