Eco Design and Energy Efficiency

Dear Colleagues,

Our society is facing the impacts of climate change, mainly due the way we produce and use energy, as well as the way we treat our products at their end-of-life. The effort is to achieve sustainable development and deliver to coming generations a better environment at times of transition. It is already proven that eco design is the key approach in order to achieve resource efficiency and circularity in our economies. Everywhere, in every action, scientists and engineers design, construct and invent new products and services that present lower impact to the environment or restored damaged areas. This is the definition of eco design, ecological design, and sustainable design, aiming to have products, processes, and services with smaller environmental impact. More efforts are made in products related to energy production and utilization, as scientific research has proven that this human activity has the highest impact on the environment. Thus, another important activity is related to energy efficiency in every human activity, especially now as the energy crisis progresses rapidly. This crisis again illustrates the importance of the capacity to sustain or improve our way of life by consuming less energy—a challenge especially for lower-income people and in times of transition.

Energy efficiency is considered as the first fuel, more important than the renewables, and eco design is the “heart and soul” of the circular economy. The European Union recognized ecological design and energy efficiency as the highest priorities and the most important actions towards a sustainable future. The UN presented the Sustainable Development Goals, where these two have a key role in achieving a better future for the generations to come.

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to the theory, design, new products and methods, applications, equipment, and methodologies for improving energy efficiency and implementing ecological design concepts in industrial processes, buildings, products and services.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to:

• All aspects of applications and methodologies of eco design and energy efficiency applied to energy-related products, services and systems—everywhere that energy use is related directly and indirectly;
• Energy efficiency and eco design in buildings and construction sectors;
• Industry and/or industrial processes and production lines;
• Materials and resource efficiency for products, processes and services;
• Energy efficiency in telecommunication and information systems;
• Eco design of energy-related products;
• Standards and legislation issues related to eco design and energy efficiency;
• New design concepts and methodologies;
• Products, services and processes;
• Energy efficiency and eco design in electrical and electronics engineering;
• Energy efficiency and eco design in communications and computer engineering;
• Energy efficiency and eco design in mechanical and marine applications;
• Eco design and energy efficiency in civil and environmental applications;
• Energy efficiency and eco design in chemical applications.

Prof. Dr. Constantinos S. Psomopoulos
Prof. Dr. Elisa Peñalvo-López
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• eco design of energy-related products
• sustainable design
• energy efficiency
• energy savings
• sustainable energy
• sustainable products
• resource efficiency towards more environmentally friendly products
• eco design and energy efficiency in industry 4.0
• methodologies and approaches for achieving sustainable products and systems
• software and hardware approaches towards energy-efficient data management
• AI and machine learning towards more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly services
• life-cycle analysis in products and services
• life-cycle thinking in products and systems
• life-cycle costing and analysis for products, processes and services
• product design based on 3Re (recyclability, reusability, repairability)
• environmental product declarations
• environmental footprint improvement
• sustainability approaches in design
• eco design legislation issues
• minimum energy performance standards