Sustainable Design in the Life Cycle Perspective: Materials, Products, Systems, Processes

Dear Colleagues,

As is known, starting from the second half of the last century, a closer examination of the factors characterizing the processes of development in industrialized countries have pointed out the environmental risks implicit in an industrial development conditioned exclusively by economic drivers. The concept of sustainable development is the most widely known result of a deeper comprehension of the limits to resources, and the large-scale consequences of resources depletion and pollution phenomena, and promotes the reconciliation of development processes with the respect for the environment, in the interests of the future generations.

Increasing awareness of environmental issues has materialized in a more incisive orientation toward the optimization of production systems to ensure some kind of eco-compatibility, leading to the development of new paradigms for products and systems design. The idea of a design process aimed at reducing the environmental impact of processes and products has spread widely during the last two decades, and has led to a considerable effort that produced new studies, with the specific objective of integrating environmental needs into traditional design practice, trying to limit the environmental impact of products and systems already in the design phase.

In this perspective, Sustainable Design can be defined as a design approach aimed at the systematic reduction of the environmental impacts that affect the entire life cycle of a product or system, from the extraction of materials to the disposal at the end-of-life. This approach is based on the proactive assessment of potential impacts during the whole design process.

The concept of environmental impact reduction through the life cycle should not be limited to the quantification and control of direct impacts of the phases of product life on the ecosystem. Rather, it should be understood in broader terms, as an optimization of the environmental behavior of the system, which includes a more articulated range of aspects:

• effective management of materials, which consists in the improvement of materials processing sustainability, in the correct use of materials based on the required performance, in their recovery at the end of the product's life, in the reduction of the use of toxic or polluting materials, in the development of new eco-friendly materials
• improvement of design solutions, with regard to their behavior during the manufacturing, use, and end-of-life phases, in order to reduce the consumption of resources, the need for additional resources during operation, the recovery of resources at the end of useful life
• optimization of production processes, by design and planning energy-efficient and low-emission processes, and development of cleaner manufacturing technologies

This Special Issue aims to be an opportunity to present and collect new proposals and advanced experiences, according to the current orientations in the wide field of Sustainable Design, with a basic objective: help promote the new design culture which takes account not only of the conventional requirements of product and system design, but also of the new requirements needed to pursue an efficient environmental performances; its spread can constitute a key success factor in the implementation of the new industrial paradigms of circular economy and social responsibility.

Dr. Fabio Giudice
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Subject areas of the Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

Materials life cycle and environmental characterization

• Impact of mining and extractive metallurgy
• Critical Raw Materials (CRMs)
• Material Flow Analysis (MFA)
• Total Material Requirement (TMR)
• Environmental characterization (Material footprint, Embodied energies, Recycle fraction)
• Toxicity and hazardous materials
• Recycling technologies
• Closed-loop supply chain management
• Eco-friendly materials
• Optimal materials selection

Products and systems life cycle design and modeling

• Life cycle planning, design, and assessment
• Life cycle modeling and simulation
• Design for Environment (DFE)
• Design for Disassembly (DFD)
• Design for Recovery (Reuse, Remanufacturing, Recycling)
• DFX in the environmental perspective (Design for Manufacturing, Maintainability, Upgrading)
• Life Cycle Management (LCM)
• Extended producer responsibility
• Product-Service System (PSS)

Clean processes and environmental conscious manufacturing

• Sustainable process design and production planning
• Cleaner production and technical processes
• Energy/exergy analysis and efficiency
• Pollution prevention and reduction
• Environmental accounting, auditing and review
• Industrial Metabolism and Industrial Ecology
• Smart Manufacturing in the environmental perspective (Lean Manufacturing, Smart factory, Additive Manufacturing, Sustainable manufacturing within Industry 4.0)