An Integrated Approach for the Development and Management of Environmentally Conscious Products

The achievement of the optimum agreement between technical aspects and characteristics, and environmental aspects has become very hard task for designers: it is clear that better results can be achieved by planning of numerous aspects concerning the whole life cycle of products from the initial stages of their development. In order to integrate the "Life Cycle Thinking" within the traditional design activities, the research work was focused on the definition of an easy-to-use design framework aimed at the solution of design hindrances and limitations, caused by the many different requirements both of a technical nature and from the customers\´ point of view, as well as the need to respect environmental standards and regulations. This approach was developed throughout its application to an industrial case: the redesign of an electric vehicle was performed with the aim of improving its environmental performances particularly during the use phase