It isn't easy being green.

Green is industry's favorite color. It is not the green of envy nor the green of money; it is the green of environmentalism--a green that lures consumers to enlightened companies. Traditionally, manufacturers have tried to be environmentally responsible by cleaning up waste emanating from

Design is the key to making products that are environmentally friendly, according to a report, "Green Products by Design: Choices for a Cleaner Environment," published in October 1992 by the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). The report analyzes the underlying concepts in designing for the environment and the options available to Congress to encourage industry's adoption of such a design approach. (The project director of the OTA report, Gregory Eyring, was a panelist at a November 1992 meeting of the ASME Industry Advisory Board on design for the environment. This board comprises corporate leaders who serve as a link between ASME and industry. An article on this meeting appears in this month's ASME News.)

Citing a National Research Council finding that at least 70 percent of the costs associated with developing, manufacturing, and using products are determined early in the design process, the OTA report asserts that design is a key to a manufacturer's competitiveness. The early design stage is also when decisions are made on types of resources and manufacturing processes to be used, the report notes--defining the waste streams associated with the manufacture, use, and ultimate disposal of a product.

Although the most obvious impact of a product on the environment is during its disposal, other impacts are associated with extracting raw materials, materials processing, product manufacture, and product use. These impacts can be reduced by recycling materials (to reduce the need for their extraction), remanufacturing (to reduce the need for new components), and reuse (to reduce the need for disposal).

Green Products or Green Systems?

Several approaches to green design compete for the attention of engineers. Product-oriented environmental design works within an established network of production and consumption by reducing the toxicity of constituents, increasing recyclability, and reducing the volume of packaging.

Waste reduction through this process can be significant. The OTA report notes that packaging constitutes some 30 percent of the volume of municipal solid waste (MSW). Since packaging designers agree that it is possible to reduce packaging volume by 10 percent in a single year, this could reduce the total volume of MSW by 3 percent per year.

However, viewing a product in isolation from the networks of production and consumption limits the designer's ability to reduce environmental impacts. "Green design is likely to have its largest impact in the context of changing the overall systems in which products are manufactured, used, and disposed, rather than changing the composition of products per se," according to the OTA report. "Product design that accounts for the dynamic relationships among all companies involved in a production system has the potential to produce less waste than product design that only takes account of an individual company's waste stream."

By using recycled materials, manufacturers can prevent the creation of extraction and materials-processing wastes, whose weight dwarfs the tonnage of MSW created annually. Heavy metals used in manufacturing end up, for the most part, in the product, according to a study cited in the OTA report. Changing the composition of products that are used and ultimately discarded can help keep these metals out of the waste stream, the report suggests.

A systems approach can do more than change the composition of a product and how it is manufactured. When companies take a systems approach, they may change the nature of their business. The success of integrated pest management in farming, for example, has prompted chemical companies to no longer simply supply pesticides to farmers, but also to provide expertise on how to use those chemicals in conjunction with better field design and crop management, the report says.

A Federal Role?

Even today, the federal government influences design through its environmental regulations. Federal corporate average fuel economy standards, aimed at reducing gasoline consumption, have forced automakers to reduce the weight of vehicles, often through substituting plastics for metal. But true green design means that environmental considerations are incorporated as design objectives with minimum loss to product performance, useful life, or functionality--rather than as external constraints, according to the OTA report.

Companies already have several incentives for practicing green design: the need to control manufacturing costs, the desire to reduce pollution-control costs, and opportunities to gain consumer loyalty. "Even if Congress takes no further action, these incentives can be expected to continue in the future," the report notes. In the long term, however, Congress could support needed research, including models showing how high-risk materials flow through the economy; require industry to report on the use of selected chemicals, not just their release into the environment; provide regulatory and market-based incentives that would reinforce environmentally sound design; and ensure coordination between federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, which is concerned with the environment, and the Department of Commerce, which is concerned with industrial competitiveness.