Proposal of a methodology for constructing weighted checklist targeting environmentally conscious design

Ecodesign plays one of the most important roles in manufacturing sectors towards a sustainable society. As a practical tool of ecodesign, manufactures often use checklists to support product design as well as to obtain eco-label certification. However, current checklists are insufficient due to undetermined effects of individual requirements in the checklists on environmental impact. This paper proposes a method for supporting ecodesign assessment by developing a weighted checklist, where potential environmental improvements in each requirement are derived based on the life cycle simulation. In the case study involving a digital duplicator, the proposed method successfully identified requirements that needed to be improved. When suggested improvements were applied, 8% of total CO₂ emissions were estimated to be reduced.