Sustainability Through Innovation in Product Life Cycle Design

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) recovery facilities have been set up for the last decade to promote a circular economy. Their activities focus on the reuse, remanufacturing and/or recycling of products. Currently, little information reaches designers regarding the requirements that these facilities have on product design. Therefore, most products are not designed to be properly recovered. The aim of this paper is to explore the nature of product life-cycle information from recovery organisations that could be shared in order to improve resource efficiency. The focus is on how information exchange can benefit the end-of-life phase of forthcoming designed products. Two levels of information have been identified, macroscopic and microscopic. Our study is illustrated with a detailed analysis of the French WEEE compliance scheme and an in-depth analysis of an IT remanufacturing facility in Sweden. Based on the case studies, we have identified current and potential information flows between different stakeholders that could benefit design for recovery.

Although consumers are increasingly critical to include environmental and social aspects in their purchase decision, environmental friendly product design is not widespread, and for many products there are no sustainable alternatives. Additionally, sustainability is a very complex issue which overtaxes many companies forcing them to leaving it behind. The concept for a framework presented in this paper is a first step towards supporting sustainable development by making this complex task tangible (problem layer), projectable (goal layer) and accessible (action layer).

Product development lately has to deal with economic, technical, consumer-related and environmental issues. Environmental concerns owed to changing climate, local natural catastrophes and lack of resources are pushing into the foreground. Eighty percent of a product’s environmental footprint is determined in the design phase. Eco-design, integrating environmental matters while improving the environmental performance, is familiar to industries but rarely applied, hemmed by various barriers and obstacles. Conflicts of interest emerging in the R&D phase impair considering and enforcing a switch to eco-design. Conflicts are produced by different legal and normative frameworks, aims of corporate departments or product requirements. A closer look at two life-cycle phases (product development and end of life) helps understand eco-design in automotive battery development.

Disassembly is a fundamental process for component reuse, remanufacturing, and material recycling of all assembled products. In the last decades, design methodologies for disassembly that simplify products’ structure, fastener, and disassembling process have been widely explored. However, the shape of components to be recycled or discarded need not be maintained in the end-of-life process. This means that we can separate valuable and/or hazardous components more rapidly by deforming or breaking surrounding components designed for the deformation or destruction process. This article proposes a computer-aided design method for such semi-destructive disassembly. In the detailed design phase of the method, linear shape features that enable to break a product into desired shape of chunks are added to the product geometric model. The semi-destructive process aims at extracting reusable, recyclable, or hazardous components more efficiently than manual disassembly with higher quality than shredding. The system supports a designer in determining the location of the linear features called split lines.

Sustainability is a process of change, which ensures present generations to meet their needs without preventing future generations from meeting their necessities. Products have a huge impact on sustainable development since product properties determine the product’s environmental impact. This contribution analyzes the potential of commonly known and established methods to support developers in designing sustainable products. Possibilities to integrate sustainability requirements, as well as thereby arising difficulties, are considered. The development of an ice crusher is the use case for the analysis.

The next generation of eco-products, known as sustainable products, must address social concerns as well as satisfy economic and environmental criteria. One of the social aspects of a product is its contribution to the local community. The main driving force of global economic growth currently comes from emerging countries, such as China and India, and it will move to developing countries in the future. To support the development of sustainable products in these countries, a research agenda is presented for establishing a locally oriented sustainable product design methodology. Also, a concept of an extended function-structure analysis method based on a combination of reverse engineering and field observation is proposed. In this method, the scope of analysis is extended in terms of space and time to understand comprehensively the explicit and implicit site-specific characteristics of a product and its life cycle.

One of the largest bottlenecks of social sustainability is disparity between developed and developing countries. For decreasing the disparity by raising the quality of life in developing countries, various products and services are expected to be diffused. Conventional products designed for developed countries are not fit to developing countries because of the differences between “locality” including culture, economy, and other situations. We should focus on locality of developing countries in the product design. In this study, we propose “Local-Oriented Manufacturing (LOMan).” LOMan is a concept to encourage designers to focus on locality at manufacturing and use stages. The objective of this research is to propose a design methodology for LOMan. Especially, this paper clarifies the problem of LOMan by describing the results of case studies and a field survey. Based on these results, this paper then proposes “Local-Oriented Manufacturing map (LOMmap)” as a method of knowledge representation for the LOMan design. As a result, we found two kinds of information are needed for supporting LOMan design. One is the information on the local circumstances. The other is the information on influences on a product life cycle caused by the local circumstances. LOMmap supports a designer in determining product specification for LOMan design by representing the two kinds of information.

This work builds upon the user-centric “design-thinking” methodology to form environment-community-human-oriented (ECHO) design, a process that strives to create solutions that not only meet the needs of the potential users but also create positive experiences and meaningfully influence their communities and the environment. As important as the users, the environment and communities are also key design considerations and target beneficiaries of the design outcomes. ECHO design was applied to solve the lack-of-safe-drinking-water problem in under-resourced communities. The resulting solution was an integration of products and services, consisting of an inexpensive, easy-to-use-and-maintain, aesthetically pleasing, and environmentally friendly water-disinfecting device; a model to fit the use of the device into the local daily routines, skills, resources, communities’ cultures, social conducts, spending habits, health understanding, and environmental settings; and a business model aiming to sustain the use of the product, health-oriented mind-set, and positive long-term impacts on the individuals, communities, and the environment.

This study proposes an aid for generating new design that persuades users to more bodily movement for both health and energy harvesting, leading to LOHAS (lifestyle of health and sustainability) by using a behavior model that suggests users’ motives and ability are keys for successful persuasion. The work consists mainly of three parts. Firstly, a questionnaire survey is conducted to gather users’ basic information and users’ motives and ability in conducting exercise and using products that require bodily movement. Regression models are built to identify potential user’s motives and lack of ability based on their information. Secondly, a domain model for case-based reasoning is proposed that explains how design and technology can help persuade users to perform target behavior including moving upper limbs, lower limbs, and whole body. A case library contains more than 90 cases with information of five groups of attributes of the domain model. In the third part, a six-step procedure is proposed based on the concept of case-based reasoning to find useful suggestions on product design from retrieved cases by specifying target users and target behaviors. An illustrative example is presented at the end to demonstrate the proposed approach.

The implementation of free trade agreements around the globe has forced companies to differentiate their business to stay competitive globally. Companies are expected to be sustainable, fulfilling all aspects of the triple bottom line. Therefore, a sustainable supply chain management is a challenge to be implemented. This study serves as a preliminary research to discover the perception of sustainable supply chain management among Indonesian companies and its current implementation. The research was conducted through questionnaires and in-depth interviews to representatives of the companies. The industrial respondents are varied to different types, from multinational companies, state-owned companies to local companies. Results suggested that local companies have yet gain understanding of the benefit of being sustainable. Only state-owned and multinational companies have good perception on the issue and just starting to implement the tools of sustainable supply chain management to reduce costs.

Many researches were conducted and proved that a solar-based cooker can provide high temperature sufficient for cooking foods. However, solar-based cookers have not been widely used in households yet. This paper aims to investigate the reasons for the low acceptance of solar cookers on the part of the households, based on an analysis of the user needs related to cooking behavior, in order to suggest design criteria of a solar cooker which is more likely to be accepted by households. Questionnaires, observation, and interviews were used to clarify user needs in Thailand and Austria. A prototype was used as a tool to bridge user needs and stove capability. The result of this study focuses on (1) user expectation and (2) compatible design in practical use and building infrastructure.

The present work examines the views of renewable energy stakeholders with regard to what they deem as sustainable methods of renewable energy financing in the Kenyan market. It also touches on the preferred source of renewable energy and the factors that need to be considered for their successful implementation. The study made use of online surveys, key informant interviews and site visits to collect data. The findings are intended to be used to inform decisions regarding sustainable financing solutions that are suitable for the Kenyan market. The key finding is that although the Kenyan government has taken a rather hands-off approach to the solar energy market, this market has been able to thrive in the private sector in the recent years.

The present study examines role of oil and gas (O&G) industry in Thailand towards the transition to a low-carbon future or, in other words, the diversification of the energy mix to be less dependent on fossil fuels and increase the penetration of renewable and alternative energy. It proposes that although government policy is important to drive changes in the energy mix, the O&G industry, an established energy supplier, could arguably be a key player for sustainable energy development. After reviewing the energy policy of Thailand, and in particular the climate change mitigation and renewable and alternative energy development policy, the study distributed an online questionnaire survey and conducted interviews with six O&G companies in Thailand to gain first-hand data on their corporate response to climate change and low-carbon energy sources. Findings revealed proactive responses in climate change mitigation with various activities undertaken signifying a range of degree of commitment among the various companies. Finally, the authors outlined policy recommendations based on an analysis of incentives and rationales for companies to take part in low-carbon energy development in Thailand.

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE or e-waste) contains both valuable and hazardous substances and there is great demand for metal scrap. To better understand both material recovery and the environmental impacts by informal recycling of e-waste, and to find potential ways to improve the process, we carried out a field survey at an informal recycling site in the Philippines. We identified the Au recovery process used at the site and evaluated the layout of the recycling site. We collected 31 soil samples at the recycling site and analyzed the metal contents of each sample to clarify the metal distribution within the site. We determined that valuable substances (such as Au), as well as hazardous substances (such as Pb), were scattered throughout the soil at the informal recycling site. The results of our cluster analysis indicated that Au, Ag, Pb, and Sb were categorized in the same group. Improvements are needed in the metal recovery process and in hazardous substance emission control in the informal recycling.

This paper presents a refined version of the Actors and System Map methodology. The refined method is more clearly defined and follows a structured process. This method can be used for describing actors and activities between a provider and a customer within a product/service system. The methodology helps in providing an overview of participating actors within a system, which is advantageous since there are often differences of opinion regarding the actors involved. An example of when the methodology has been used is presented.

Product-service systems (PSS) are seen as a cornerstone of a future circular economy. However, in order to achieve the desired environmental benefits, the industrial implementation of PSS design is key. This chapter discusses the apparent lack of an adaptation of design processes to PSS or adoption of PSS design methods within companies, which are nevertheless successfully offering PSS. Based on experiences at two companies and under close regard of the relevant literature, possible causes of this lack of method adaptation/adoption are discussed, and the effects this may have are deliberated. Lastly, potential solutions to this issue and ways forward are introduced and reflected upon focusing on the companies.

The increasing seriousness of environmental problems is forcing manufacturing companies to make their businesses sustainable. For improving environmentally friendliness of their business, therefore, manufacturing companies pay attention to product-service system (PSS), because it can increase the effectiveness of life cycle options, which are means of reducing the environmental load. We propose a design method for environmentally benign PSS business, in which the provider offers products through a combination of services, delivery modes, and life cycle options. Such business can meet the different customer needs while enabling the implementation of delivery modes and life cycle options requiring a group of customers. The method is verified via application to managed document services.

Remanufacturing has significant market potential, and the purported benefits of remanufacturing are compelling. Remanufacturing offers a means to retain control of products and materials throughout the product life cycle, and, therefore, through remanufacturing, businesses can insulate against material price shocks and future material scarcity issues. Remanufacturing has therefore been identified as a ‘sleeping giant’ whose potential, once tapped, can fast track companies to increased profits, while, in parallel, realising circular practices within industrial systems. However, it is widely accepted that the majority of products that are currently remanufactured have not been designed for remanufacturing and business models to support remanufacturing are complex. In light of these combined issues, this paper presents the story of a business in transition. The core aim of this paper is to build understanding of design for remanufacturing and remanufacturing-oriented business models. The paper reports on the linkages between design and business model strategies by presenting a case of a business-led pilot study conducted to explore the commercial viability of remanufacturing. The results show how life cycle considerations and a combination of design and business strategies can accelerate transition to resource-efficient business models. The paper illuminates the topic of remanufacturing by showcasing a dynamic real-world business case, from which other companies can learn.

Activities to develop low-carbon society businesses in Japan started in 2009 and have been executed until now. Governmental funds were invested intensively in four areas – City of Yokohama, Toyota City, Keihanna (Kyoto), and City of Kitakyushu – and the verification projects were executed. The research was conducted in order that low-carbon society businesses will be smoothly developed after the verification projects. It was found through the projects that the following points were important to develop low-carbon society businesses. The first point was that the governmental support should be based not on element technologies but on future business models. The second point was that technologies should be selected based on the future business models. The third point was prioritization and the fourth point was the management function to develop business models.

The mobile phone industry is based upon the rapid development of handsets and the high turnover of devices in order to drive sales. Phones are often used for shorter periods of time than their designed life, and when discarded it is often through channels that result in lost resource. This unsustainable business model places strain on resources and creates adverse environmental and social impacts. Through interrogation of a stock and flow model, a product-service system (PSS) for a small consumer electronic device, a mobile telephone, is proposed. The points at which value may be extracted from the PSS are identified. A quantitative measure of value is proposed in order to allow the evaluation of the most appropriate time to extract it. This value is not solely monetary, but is derived from the combination of indicators which encompass environmental, economic, and technological factors. A worked example is presented, in which it is found that the precious metals within the phone are the main determinants for value extraction. These metals are found in the printed circuit board, leading to a requirement to design phones for ease of extraction of these components in order to access the value within.

Technologies and qualities of Japan’s water infrastructures are of the highest levels in the world. However, the presence of Japanese water businesses in the world is very low because the businesses have been deployed mostly in Japan. In this research, case studies were done to reveal elements necessary to deploy water businesses in the world smoothly. Japanese companies have the strengths in equipment and EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) but the weakness in operation because most of Japanese companies have relied on municipalities for years. As a result, Japanese companies cannot deploy their businesses as systems. Japanese companies should increase the involvement in operations. In other words, Japanese companies should reject to the concept of “All-Japan” and find global partners to operate water infrastructures for years.

In Japan, the annual number of used smartphones is rapidly increasing. Such used smartphones often outflow to overseas, and domestic material recycling system will be endangered, if smartphones become dominant in the recycling market. Component reuse (remanufacturing) is a hopeful way to extract larger value from used products. In focusing on component reuse, the paper carries out disassembly experiments to know the bottlenecks of disassembly. The paper proposed design improvement plans and also proposed conceptual PSS (product service system) ideas. It concluded that component reuse of used mobile phones can be a good way to bridge the gap between product reuse and material recycling.

Transforming today’s mass consumption society into one that circulates products is one of the key concepts of sustainability. Reuse of furniture and home appliances within neighborhoods already occurs in many countries. This paper describes a system that finds an appropriate path between households in a locality for increasing the degree of reuse of some products. Based on a predefined map that has information on houses, the proposed system determines a pair of houses that are separated by the shortest distance, among the combinations of houses, with the appropriate conditions for reusing a product. An agent-based technology is used to determine grouping based on distance between houses. A simulator visualizes the grouping for performing the matching operations.

To realize the effective reuse of mechanical parts for developing a sustainable society, it is essential to manage the individual parts over their entire life cycle. Therefore, we are developing a part agent system using network agents. In this paper, we assume that a user acts based on the expected value obtained by current and future actions such as use, repair, replacement, and disposal. We employ prospect theory to calculate these expected values, and user behavior is discussed in the life cycle simulation using a part agent system based on prospect theory.

To carry out green marketing, enterprises should strive to reach a balance between commercial interests and environmental protection, identify the factors that influence consumers’ purchase decisions on green products, and develop appropriate marketing strategies, in order to be more competitive. This paper discusses the advertising design of cause-related marketing (CRM) and green processes (GP) of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and control group (CG) advertisings, and analyzes the influence of CSR advertising design and film information of consumers. This study adopted the quasi-experiment mode and conducted empirical research according to 3 × 2 between-subjects factorial designs. The results showed that consumers have a relatively positive response to CSR advertising designs and film information. After viewing the CRM film, the subjects changed their attitude regarding CRM advertising, but no effect was found in the GP advertising. The findings of this study can provide an understanding to the effects of the two CSR advertising designs and film information for reference to future green marketing planning.

Resource efficient and cleaner production (RECP) means a continuous application of an integrated preventive environmental strategy to processes, products and services to increase overall efficiency. This leads to improved environmental performance, cost savings and reduction of risks to humans and the environment. Additionally, RECP strategy includes a clearly defined RECP management system, which ensures continuous improvement of environmental and economic performance. Each action to reduce consumption of raw materials and energy, and to prevent or to reduce generation of waste, increases productivity and brings financial benefits to an enterprise. A preventive approach means that environmental problems are addressed before they arise at the time when choices are made concerning processes, raw materials, design, transportation, services, etc. The paper describes a method that comprises logical steps of RECP assessment that are embedded in a special procedure. For implementation of the RECP innovations, the Revolving Facility SPIN (the System for Preventive Innovations) has been developed. SPIN addresses the needs to enhance the financing opportunities of the RECP innovations that otherwise would not have been implemented. The Facility constitutes a follow-up of various RECP programmes and projects supported by the UN worldwide. The facility had considerable catalytic effects by demonstrating to other financiers and enterprises that the financing of priority cleaner production investments yields significant environmental and economic benefits. The paper presents an overview of more than 200 successful cases of RECP innovation implementation. In each case, realised savings have been verified and compared with the expected savings.

This paper presents a model for integrated production and transportation scheduling in order to develop a low-carbon supply chain. A genetic algorithm and heuristic rules are applied to production scheduling problems, and beam search technique is used for transportation scheduling problems in consideration of both the tardiness of products and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in manufacturing and transportation processes. A simulation system is developed to verify the effectiveness of the model.

A concept called digital eco-factory (a collection of software agents that virtually represent the hardware and software facilities involved in a manufacturing system) has been developed to examine the environmental performance, productivity, and manufacturability, simultaneously, of a manufacturing system. This study reports three applications of the digital eco-factory in evaluating a printed circuit assembly (PCA) line. The first application deals with the determination of environmental performance and productivity of a PCA line for various production plans without changing the configuration of the line. The second application deals with the evaluation of the adequacy of the production plans for various PCA lines. The last application deals with the effects of an accident (e.g., machine failures) while running a PCA line. The successful implementation of the proposed digital eco-factory in the above three cases helps identify the general configuration of the digital eco-factory that can be used for other production lines.

A remanufacturer generates an order for a used product considering economic profits through a disassembly schedule. This requires a negotiation model embedded in a closed-loop supply chain where the stakeholders (such as client, manufacturer, supplier, and remanufacturer) interact for achieving their respective objectives. This study proposes a new negotiation model for increasing the degree of reuse of products and, thereby, reducing the waste. A simulation system based on closed-loop supply chain is also developed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed negotiation model.

Management of used electronics is an emerging problem in all over the world. In order to utilize the valuable metals contained in used electronic equipment, efficient system for recycling is necessary. The authors have proposed a concept of “remote recycling” which is to carry out separation of valuable metals by teleoperation. As the first step of the feasibility study, rough crushing and visual separation of particles were carried out. By measuring compositions of the particles, it was shown that only by rough crushing and handpicking, the percentages of metals were much higher than printed circuit board (PCB) itself. The experimental results showed that remote recycling is technically feasible. The study also tried some cost-profit analysis based on the prices of metals contained in the selected particles and showed economical feasibility of the concept. Finally, the study concluded that remote recycling will be a totally new and promising concept which is suitable for handling used small-sized electronics.

Strategic development of the life cycle of electric and electrical equipment such as mobile phones and laptop computers is critical for the recycling of precious and rare metals as well as the reuse and remanufacturing of components. The quality of collected products at the end-of-life (EoL) stage is uncertain due to variations in these products regarding the material composition and reusability. Quantification and reduction of such uncertainty is crucial for the appropriate assignment of EoL options such as reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling. The paper models and analyzes the inspection process as well as the process to assign specific EoL options to collected products. An entropy-based indicator is proposed for the quantification of the uncertainty derived from variations in collected products regarding their age. The impact of the sampling rate and accuracy of the inspection process on the number of the occurrences of EoL options is analyzed with life cycle simulation. It found that the simulation result identifies specific time periods, in which the inspection process is meaningful, and that the sampling rate positively correlates the number of the occurrences of reuse and remanufacturing processes.

Today, additive manufacturing (AM), which refers to a process by which digital design data is used to build up artifacts by decomposing material, is gaining growing interest from industry. The AM’s capability for producing complex structure in extremely small lot size can enable more optimal design for today’s manufacturing products. Through such optimal design of each product, energy and material consumption of society can be significantly reduced. As AM can produce a wide variety of components in one-by-one production, the total number of the products (and components) can be significantly reduced. In addition, the products made by AM can be optimally designed and manufactured for each particular purpose. This implies these products have no unused functions that may consume additional energy and materials. The objective of the paper is to propose the method for evaluating AM’s potential for reducing environmental impact of society considering these factors caused by introducing AM technology into industry.

Mechatronic products are necessary for our life and industrial factories. Recently, most mechatronic products have self-monitoring function, which is based on the sensor data. This function is useful not only for efficient maintenance but also efficient product recovery. However, additional sensing and communication devices lead to increase of environmental costs by themselves. Therefore, eco-design of mechatronic products including these devices is expected. In this paper, the use of additive manufacturing (AM) with biodegradable materials is proposed. First, the realization type of the product is defined as the proposition of this paper. Then, characteristics of AM and biodegradable materials for contributing to reduce environmental costs are analyzed. Additive manufacturing (AM), which is usually called as 3D printing, has naturally advantage in eco-design. Biodegradable material is also known to reduce energy for product disposal processes. However, it is shown that the combinational use of them promotes the effectiveness. Next, the comparison between the conventional product and the present product of the production and disposal processes is discussed by using an electronic print board. The result shows that the production process becomes remarkably simple and the recovery process becomes efficient. Finally, a realization example is introduced. An RFID antenna module fabricated with PLA and an original biodegradable electric conductive gel is shown. This module is confirmed to work certainly by connecting with an IC chip as a mass-production module. The realization of the proposed product is discussed.

3D printing or an additive manufacturing (AM) is an up-and-coming technology which receives a lot of attentions in the recent years. This technique features fabrication of a 3D object by layering material one layer over another. Nonetheless, there are still challenges in monitoring such technique, in particular, fused deposition modeling (FDM) type. Therefore, Acoustic Emission (AE) sensor which is one of nondestructive testing (NDT) methods that has shown its ability in monitoring rotating machine was utilized. Low-cost power supply and 3D-printed magnetic mounting were also equipped in the system to acquire efficient system in lower cost than commercial system. The signals were process through LabView using fast Fourier transform (FFT) to perform frequency-domain analysis to distinguish properly working machine from faulty machine. The simulated faulty conditions include the problem of filament stop feeding through extruder and no filament supply for the extruder. The result showed an ability of AE sensor and FFT in detecting machine with faulty condition.

Cellular structure is one of the solutions for producing parts in a more resource efficient way by reduction of material and time used. These complex structures can be customised and built by using additive manufacturing technology. Cellular structures can be designed and modelled according to specific properties required. However, the modelling can be time and resource consuming due to the complexity and the size of the structure. This article presents a concept for integrating the cellular structure to the base 3D model that will be used in development of a design software tool. Hybrid B-Rep and polygon approach which is implemented with open-source libraries are used.

Different metal recovery from unsorted e-waste by smelting was investigated. Metallic Pb (lead) can be recovered from cathode ray tube (CRT) glass containing PbO by reduction melting. During the reduction melting, molten Pb has the property of mixing with other metals, and basic experiments simultaneously recovering different metals in different kinds of e-waste were investigated. Reagents of major metal components contained in printed circuit boards (PCB) and liquid crystal display (LCD) panels were added to lead silicate glass. The mixture was melted in a reductive atmosphere, and the obtained glass and metal were analyzed. Better than 90 % of Au, Ag, Cu, and Ni were recovered together in metallic form, with the recovery rate of indium 60 %. Chemical thermodynamics calculations suggested that the recovered metals are more difficult to oxidize than CO. Further, the chemical thermodynamics calculations suggested that recovery of metals that were not tested would also be possible.

In the European Union (EU), there are a large number of mandatory and voluntary policies applied to improve the environmental life cycle impacts of products. Policies are enacted at both the EU level and among the EU member states, and there is a need to develop a better coordination between the various policies. This contribution outlines the various policies and examines various conceptual approaches to coordination. It further outlines some future policy challenges.

Upcycling aims at turning scraps and wastes into new materials or products with equivalent quality or better than original through creative design. The upcycling processes are based on the direct use or the technology and production processing with consideration of potential environmental impacts and greenhouse gas. This is in line with the national policy on waste management by applying the principle of 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle), as well as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions associated with waste management. In addition, upcycling is seen as one way to add values on wastes and promote the development of creative economy. Under this context, the UPCYCLE Carbon Footprint certification and verification system was initiated and developed in June 2015 under the leadership of the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. There are five criteria in the UPCYCLE Carbon Footprint certification scheme: (1) scraps and wastes, (2) upcycling process, (3) product quality, (4) creative design, and (5) carbon footprint. For the requirement of carbon footprint, the avoided GHG emissions of upcycle materials or products shall be higher than their life cycle GHG emissions. A case study of upcycled glass tiles was used to demonstrate how to calculate the associated carbon footprint. It aims to be used as a communication and marketing tool to ensure that the certified upcycled materials or products are made from wastes/scraps, fit for use, have a good quality, and friendly to the environment.

This paper focuses on the future energy strategy that primarily involves the use of renewable resources, such as hydropower, geothermal, biomass, photovoltaic and wind power, in Japan to decrease CO₂ emission. We estimated the national energy demand in 2050 by considering population decrease, macroeconomic prospects and energy efficiency improvement. The results of a survey on the supply potentials of domestic renewable energy are used to allocate renewable energy supply to end-use energy demand. We analysed three scenarios of energy supply systems. Scenario ‘A’ involves providing supply for pure electricity demand only, and scenario ‘B’ involves providing supply for pure electricity demand, electricity to EVs (electric vehicles) and hydrogen to FCVs (fuel cell vehicles). Scenario ‘C’ involves providing supply for pure electricity demand and hydrogen and thermal energy for all types of energy demand. We performed dynamic simulation of the annual electricity supply with hourly weather data for three scenarios and discussed the scenario structures.

Sustainable energy systems and transitions towards such systems are often discussed among experts or high-level stakeholders, but rarely involve individuals from the general community. This paper argues that it is important for such stakeholders to be engaged in the visioning or formation of plans for future energy systems in order for effective transitions to take place. The results of a number of related studies and techniques for achieving such visions are presented. Furthermore, research has indicated that there is a need to effectively nurture niche actors in order to provide the seeds of future sustainable regimes with the possibility to emerge. A discussion of how policy could promote this will also be described.

Sustainability means meeting the current needs without jeopardizing the potentials of fulfilling the future needs. Sustainable Society Scenario (3S) Simulator is one of the effective computing frameworks for assessing the sustainability of an issue from a greater context. The 3S Simulator uses the sampling, forecasting, and/or backcasting related information while performing the simulation for some given scenarios. In this study, a fuzzy Monte Carlo simulation technique is introduced for its use within the context of 3S Simulator. The technique uses the numerical data related to sampling, forecasting, and/or backcasting and induces the underlying possibility distributions (fuzzy numbers). The simulated states are then stochastically generated from the induced fuzzy numbers. The effectiveness of the proposed simulation technique is demonstrated by providing numerical results that deal with the forecasting of CO₂ emissions from a growing population of passenger vehicles having variable mileage and fuel efficiency.

Minerals and energy have been highly intertwined throughout history, but are becoming even more so with two key emerging trends: the gradual declining grade and increasing depth and complexity of ores and the increasing demand for high-performance functional materials in energy technologies. This paper examines these trends from the perspective of eco-design, focusing on the competing requirements of energy for producing and processing minerals and the demand for minerals in energy technologies. One key element examined is recycling – its impact on supply and the opposing implications of miniaturisation for recyclability of energy technologies. Peak minerals are addressed in conjunction with the implications of nonconventional resources such as deep ocean deposits.

Many countries, including Japan, have taken measures to reduce the load placed on the environment, thus, helping reduce the effects of global warming. One measure, the spread of information and communications technology (ICT) has increased the effects of global warming. However, ICT is expected to be of benefit regarding environmental load reduction, specifically by making it possible to reduce CO₂ emissions. Such technology can reduce the need for human physical effort and enhance the efficiency of physical distribution and other industrial activities. The use of ICT to estimate the reduction in CO₂ emissions is important if the government is to adopt a policy of promoting ICT and addressing environmental issues. Since 2003, we have continuously estimated the reduction in CO₂ emissions throughout Japan while updating the estimation factors. In this paper, we report on the results of an estimation of the 2013 data. The reduction in CO₂ emissions in 2013 was less than that for 2012, which was predicted in 2008. By analyzing the estimation factors, we reveal that these results are due to the ICT penetration rate. We also discuss a future prediction based on the penetration rate obtained for 2013.

In the aftermath of a natural disaster, post-disaster management (PDM) stakeholders tackle both the planning for and delivery of the subsequent recovery phase to reinstate permanent, safe and sustainable livelihoods to affected communities. Such complex scenarios demand particular capabilities from a range of knowledge fields. Access to all types of required expertise can be difficult to arrange, and as such PDM practitioners face many ‘gaps’ that limit their efficacy in practices. This is often the case where specialised design expertise is required. Two aspects that arise when PDM skills are examined from an industrial design (ID) perspective are (a) the need to take a more holistic and human-centred design approach to augment the focus on civil infrastructure or urban scale and (b) the role of designedly systems and participatory approaches to assist in leveraging affected communities in the re-establishment of materially and technologically mediated daily activities. By framing various ID disciplinary methods inside the PDM practice, this paper explores the opportunities for a greater inclusion such methods in the development of a novel master’s course.

This paper analyzes experimental learning based on pedagogical case studies that propose practical designs with a sustainable approach. The research has limited resources, time, and scale of context. According to the activities and attitudes of the student team, they expressed strong interest in exploring the possibilities of sustainable design rather than in eco-design principles. They showed interest in focusing on sustainable consumption and consequently leaned toward a sociocultural rather than a technological eco-design approach in their works. Students faced real-world sustainability issues, providing a great opportunity for them to discuss between themselves as well as with the public.

At the 2009 Ecodesign conference, the results of a survey on the future of design for sustainable behaviour (DfSB) were presented. In this paper, the survey is revisited, and responses from both surveys are compared and discussed. The contribution of theoretical fields, research priorities, integration in business, and the location and position of DfSB are discussed. The current discourse on behaviour- versus practice-oriented research is addressed, and the paper concludes with thoughts on how DfSB may further mature as a research area.

The awareness of the fundamental role of innovation in the challenges of global and national society is well known and has been widely discussed. What is less obvious today is which innovation strategy has to be adopted to develop and drive the project onto this path. That is why researchers are looking for, studying and experimenting different types of methodologies. The innovation design lab does the same and believes that the design process initiative is a key to aspirations for a prosperous, innovative future. Innovation and the related design process of creative destruction lead to new ideas, new entrepreneurs and new business models, thus contributing to the establishment of new markets and the creation of new jobs in a sustainable way. Sustainable innovation is, therefore, the key to enable green and growth to go hand in hand, and design has gained the multidisciplinary expertise to drive it in the right way. In this article, we are setting this scenario with the explanation of the state of the art of our methodology, through the presentation of one case study developed inside our innovation design laboratory.

This paper summarizes the state of the art of open innovation and discusses why it is beneficial to connect open innovation activities, methods, and tools with the quest to create radical innovation and design for Sustainability. It is exemplified how this connection can work in practice using the open innovation and design for Sustainability platform www.innonatives.com. The paper concludes with a summary of success and failure factors of open innovation platforms generally and the innonatives platform specifically.

Although the field of ecodesign has been described by many different types of scientific review, an extensive network analysis has not been provided in literature. The authors explore collaborative network study techniques that are able, based on an extensive database of scientific articles, to visualize how networks have emerged, highlighting coauthor relations. The paper answers questions related to what appear to be and have been the main collaboration networks in the past 20 years. It is found that a giant main cluster of coauthors exists, surrounded by several smaller clusters. By highlighting key authors at different time periods, it was also found that a core group of authors exists who contributed to the field from the start and are still active in the field.

The first generation of (pre-commercial) ocean energy devices emerged in 2008, but comparatively little practical commercial development has taken place in wave and tidal power since then. Currently offshore wind power is in a sense the only true commercial deployment of an ocean energy technology seeing wide-scale adoption. Recently, several developments related to tidal energy are taking place, though progress in wave power devices remains disappointing, with several companies facing financial difficulties. This paper presents a review of recent developments in ocean energy and discusses the financial challenges and environmental misconceptions regarding such technologies.

Australian renewable energy policy is guided by the renewable energy target, which prescribes audacious targets for both large-scale and overall levels of renewable energy electricity generation. In order to achieve these targets, subsidies have been offered for both large- and small-scale generators, the most pronounced of which are the feed-in tariffs offered in each state for household solar photovoltaics. While high installation rates and positive economic and environmental impacts have been realized, little consideration has been given to the social equity impacts of these policies. This study assesses the current energy policy approach through a novel energy evaluation framework which incorporates an assessment of cost and benefit distribution and societal equity impacts. Through a multi-scenario energy policy analysis, an evidence-based alternative scenario is proposed, which can achieve environmental and economic goals while improving societal equity and sustainability outcomes in accord with observed Australian equity preferences.

In this study, the Bass Model was utilized to estimate the future diffusion of natural gas vehicles (NGVs), in Japan and other countries. The parameters contained in the model, namely, coefficient of innovation (p), coefficient of imitation (r), and the potential market (N), were extracted from the trend as indicated by the actual diffusion curve up to 2014, after which the ultimate diffusion number was calculated based mainly on these parameters. Firstly, three scenarios were established to analyze the future diffusion of NGVs in Japan, with the highest outcome being 8.5 million, accounting for 14 % of the total vehicles. Secondly, as a feasibility study, the Bass Model was utilized to examine twelve countries where NGVs are popularized. The actual diffusion curve pertaining to Iran, Argentina, India, Brazil, Italy, Columbia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Bolivia could ideally fit the Bass Model curve, while the fit was poor for China, Pakistan, and the United States. The reasons for the poor fit were then explained. Finally, the conditions and requirements to facilitate the highest diffusion number in Japan were discussed.

Through expert interviews this study obtained the influence factors of the transformation of traditional industries and set the framework of the expert questionnaire. Then the study used the Delphi method and the expert questionnaire to uncover the ranking of the influence factors and the key success factors of transforming traditional industries. The purposes of this research are as follows: (1) according to the literature reviews and expert interviews to analyze and evaluate green industry indicators; (2) based on the green industry indicators above to establish the ANP model of green industry; (3) through the ANP model to obtain and assess the weight ranking of green industry; and (4) finally, to uncover the key success factors of green industry. Furthermore, this study provided assessment check items for the transforming traditional industries toward green industries. Based on the research results, it can be expected to give clearer guidelines for the industrial transformation and sustainable development strategy, and to create innovative and sustainable green business strategies.

The rise of new knowledge economies in developed nations has changed not only economic dynamics and values, but also the nature of society. Knowledge has become the main resource in respect to products, services, processes, and business models. Within sustainable energy development, most programs and instruments were designed and implemented under neoclassical views and paradigms. However, since we are in a period of transition, the additional elements of economic dynamics and social structures and behavior related to rising knowledge societies and the rapidly evolving economics of knowledge need to be taken into account for the entire life cycle of policies and programs. In this study, an analysis is provided of conceptual and structural shortcomings in current sustainable energy development focusing on energy efficiency and conservation. This is approached from a socio-technological and economic viewpoint by taking into account the impact of postmodern science and engineering and the dynamics of rising knowledge societies.

The telecom services industry is working to prevent increases in CO₂ emissions caused by electricity consumption related to the dynamic growth of telecommunication traffic. Communication buildings, which contain information and communications technology (ICT) equipment, air-conditioning equipment, and other equipment, account for the largest amount of electricity consumed by the telecom services industry. Such companies face difficulties in managing the electricity consumption of communication buildings because they can obtain data on the total amount of electricity consumption in each communication building, but not for individual pieces of equipment. We propose an analysis model that can separate the total electricity consumption of a multipurpose building into several components depending on the consumption purpose by employing an analysis methodology related to the energy demands of typical buildings. We also applied the analysis model to communication buildings as a case study. The results showed that the analysis model was applicable to communication buildings and that the pattern of the electricity consumption differed depending on the communication purpose.

The eco-industrial park (EIP), as a new industrial park combining the concept of circular economy and industrial ecology principles of construction, has not only become an effective way to achieve sustainable development, improving energy efficiency and the ecological environment quality in many countries, but has also become an important carrier of implementing science-based, adjusting the industrial structure, accelerating the transformation, and upgrading and constructing ecological civilization in China. China began construction of eco-industrial demonstration park pilots in 1999, and subsequently has actively carried out the practice of building eco-industrial parks nationwide. Although the EIPs have made great progress in terms of planning and construction, and achieved some success in improving energy efficiency, reducing environmental pollution, and improving environmental quality, there are many problems in the development process that restrict the stable operation and coordinated development and continuous improvement of the park, such as weak ecological relevance between enterprises, low resources and energy output rate, imperfect organizational structure, unclear construction goals, and insufficient technical innovation. The causes of these problems are mainly due to the government agencies and park management department not paying enough attention to the coordinated development degree of EIPs, lacking a practicable index system and assessment method for assessing the degree of sustainable development and comprehensive development level, which result in their being unable to fully grasp the operational state of the park and also unable to formulate a highly appropriate development strategy. Therefore this chapter, based on the systematic study of the development of EIPs both domestic and abroad, is focused on the theory and methods of constructing the index system of EIPs, establishing the degree of coordination and comprehensive development level index system, and evaluation methods of sector-integrated eco-industrial parks (SIEIPs). Specific research includes the following aspects: (1) reviewing the status of domestic and foreign research and development of EIPs, and at the same time, overviewing several relevant theories and methods of construction of an EIP evaluation index system, including: eco-efficiency, flow analysis, and index systems; (2) drawing on the ideas of the analytic hierarchy process and taking the coordinated development degree and the comprehensive development level as the overall evaluation goal of SIEIPs, from economic development, resource utilization, environmental protection, ecological civilization, park management, and social progress, six subsystems proceeding to consider the current situation, construction effect, stability of development, sustainability and coordination of SIEIP development, and then using frequency statistics and expert consulting methods to select several evaluation indexes initially, further superimposed on the primary indicators analyzed, to screen and ultimately fix the evaluation index system of SIEIPs; (3) applying a multilevel extension comprehensive evaluation method to build a model of coordinated development degree and integrated development level of the SIEIPs, and using this model to evaluate a typical eco-industrial park. The results show that typical EIPs will have to make more effort regarding the stable and sustainable development of circular economy status. In addition, the evaluation results are factor analyzed, proposing strategies and measures for improvement.

University social responsibility (USR), especially in the environmental dimension, is an important engagement as the university is both a polluter and a promoter of environmental quality maintenance. A mechanism which stimulates the university to maintain the environment is the “UI GreenMetric Ranking of World Universities” released by the University of Indonesia (UI) which has embraced the “3E’s” (equity, economy, and environment) for sustainable development. Using six criteria, Naresuan University (NU) was ranked 117th in the world out of 360 countries and ranked 10th for universities in Thailand, in 2014. The UI GreenMetric criteria include areas such as infrastructure, water, transportation, waste, and education programs, among others. Green university mobilization is a crucial mission that must be undertaken to achieve the 8th goal under the Eleventh Education Development Plan (2012–2016), so as to become “a university with a friendly environment and appropriate use of resources; a society of peace, generosity, and contribution and efficient operation; a good example for the public and society.” However, under the UI GreenMetric criteria, the social dimension can be overlooked by the university, including the involvement of stakeholders both inside and outside the campus. Thus, regarding the leap to become a green university, the following community process should be set out by the university: (1) informing, (2) meeting, (3) decision-making, (4) planning, (5) implementing, (6) monitoring and evaluating, and (7) benefits. These principles embrace the “green university” process which includes G (governance), R (responsibility), E (environment), E (sufficiency economy), and N (network to contribute sustainably to the quality of life of the community surrounding the campus).

This study evaluates the environmental and economic effectiveness of high-rises and high-density urban structures in Tokyo. The adopted approach aims to enable production of open spaces and green areas by effective spatial utilization of lands and realize environmental improvement in limited spaces. The proposed evaluation model includes economic and environmental criteria. Economic indicators are composed of the construction costs of high-rise structures and the economic value of the relaxed plot ratio generated by the high-rises. The green spaces created by high-rise structures are evaluated as an environmental indicator. These indicators are adopted and integrated for a sustainability assessment. The proposed model is then tested by applying it to some case studies in the Nihonbashi Tokyo area, and various scenarios are analyzed by changing the parameters used. The results show that the high-rise and high-density urban structures would likely bring about positive economic effects through the relaxation of volume ratio in policy standards.

Nowadays, the efficient energy usage is more and more important, and reducing the energy usage of buildings lowers the overall environmental effect of energy systems. The building automation systems provide a possible solution to create smart energy distribution in buildings by controlling lighting, heating, cooling and other energy-consuming systems. One possible solution for reducing energy consumption is the use of building automation systems for energy management, and these automation systems can help to optimize the efficiency of heating, air conditioning and the electric energy consumption. In most cases, the overall consumed energy reduction with a building automation system is considered, but without the exact knowledge of the electric energy consumption of the automation system, the overall energy efficiency cannot be evaluated. The aim of our study is to analyze the electric energy consumption of a building management system. The energy consumption of a building automation system is measured in a small office-like environment. The system uses a separate power supply for the sensors and actors on the bus, so the energy consumption of the power supply gives the overall electric consumption of the building management system in different conditions. Based on the result of the analysis, the ratio of the used energy by the system and the energy consumption reduction has been estimated, and an optimal design of these systems is suggested.

Tailoring products to user requirements can improve the energy efficiency without sacrificing user satisfaction. This study considers the case of an occupancy-driven smart thermostat in an office environment. Identifying patterns in past user behaviour enables occupancy prediction to control the heating accordingly. Potential energy savings and related environmental impact reductions, compared to a fixed schedule heating system, are calculated for various heating and building types in three regions (Leuven, Calgary and Tokyo) to account for variations in climate. The obtained energy savings range between 93.2 and 546.5 kWh per year and environmental impact reductions between 2 and 38 EcoPoints.

In this study, we propose an autonomous DC microgrid system for residential community with distributed power exchange control to increase the utilization of renewable natural energy and to ensure minimal energy supply in the event of a large-scale disaster. Assuming small community of 20 houses, each house in the microgrid has its own in-house system that can continue to provide power to appliances from its own batteries and solar panels even when disconnected from the utility grid or power outage. Using solar irradiation time series and individual household power demand records, we examined its performance using real-time simulations. Finally, we propose a sustainable power system based on renewable energy that further minimizes fossil fuel consumption by integrating a renewable auxiliary power supply system such as the hydrogen energy system.

Indicators form an important tool to assess product sustainability. However, an overview over this body of literature and its contents, specifically in regard to indicators for measuring product sustainability, does not exist. The approach applied in this paper is exclusively literature based. In a structured and methodological literature survey, the relevant literature containing various methods for sustainability assessment as well as existing frameworks containing sustainability indicators have been collected. The results of this paper are a list of sustainability impact categories and indicators, spanning the three relevant fields of sustainability. As such, this paper represents a review of existing product-related sustainability indicators.

This study is a challenge to construct the long-term strategy for recycling. To identify the adequate targets for recycling, we proposed the concept that integrates the criticality assessment and material flow analysis. Prior to the evaluation based on the concept, we developed the framework of the existing criticality assessment for Japan. Furthermore, the information on domestic metal demand and discard were reviewed to evaluate the potential of recycling. By integrating these knowledge, the result of the pilot evaluation was presented with a future perspective of the study.

Recently, resource efficiency is one of the high concerns in industrialized and developing countries. High resource efficiency is considered to be key of sustainable production. This paper proposes an index to evaluate resource efficiency of a small-sized electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). The index has value of the product based on the functionality, product reusability, and component reusability, as the numerator. And it has the total amount of material consumption measured by TMR (total material requirement) minus recoverable environmental impact as the denominator. The paper carries out practical measurement of the material compositions of different models of smartphones. Then, it investigates the functional data in order to calculate actual resource efficiency value. Through this effort, the paper indicates the effectiveness of the proposed index and clarifies criteria of resource-efficient products.

Sustainability assessment requires the use of evaluation of regional processes as a basis. Regional statistical data on economic, social, and environmental aspects is used for the construction of regional sustainability assessment system as a basis for regionalized input-output life cycle sustainability assessment performed for a few regions in Germany. The results indicated the capability of a system to estimate the relative efficiency of resource use for diverse regions and separate pillars of sustainability. It was identified that sustainability of food production rates is comparable with rates of regional development, which indicates the promoting or regressing importance of separate production fields.

Understanding spatial and temporal variations of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at local level is important for both companies in the agri-food sector working to improve sustainability in their supply chains and local governments following a low-carbon development pathway. For this reason, it is necessary to count with methodologies that do not only estimate GHG emissions, but provide analytics about their location and temporal variations. Factors such as spatial distribution of farms, variations on the requirement of inputs depending on the age of the farms, as well as transportation distances for the main and complementary products, should be assessed at farm level. To accomplish this, spatial and temporal analytics can be incorporated into life cycle assessment (LCA) by joining it with geographic information systems (GIS). This paper explores how spatial statistics tools can be applied to identify spatial and temporal trends in GHG emission results obtained from an LCA conducted on cocoa farming in the region of San Martin in Peru. Results indicate that it is possible to identify temporal and spatial trends of statistically significant clusters of farms with high GHG emissions (hot spot analysis).

Increasing domestic roughage production is an important measure in designing a sustainable dairy production system in Japan. However, roughage production is one of the agricultural activities that have a significant environmental impact. The objectives of this study were to reveal potentials of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in typical roughage production systems using the life cycle assessment method (LCA). Comparative LCA was conducted to evaluate GHG emissions between the domestic roughage production system and imported hay utilization system. The functional unit of LCA was defined as roughage production at 10a, and GHG/TDN ratio was applied comparing roughage production and GHG emissions of domestic and imported roughages. The results showed that the domestic roughage production system produced 20 % less GHG emissions than the imported hay utilization system. GHG/TDN ratios were associated with the LCA results to compare GHG emissions with production of different roughage production systems.

Batik is one of Indonesian traditional fabrics with substantial values, honored by UNICEF as intangible cultural heritage in 2009, and has been exist since long time ago. Previously, the local wisdom of using natural dyes preserved the environment during batik production. Recently, due to the high demand, economic motives, and the effort to get affordable raw materials for cost saving, many unsustainable common practices are conducted by the SMEs during their production as the majority producers of Indonesian batik. It occurs most especially due to several limitations and challenges faced by the SMEs. This research provides ideas to improve batik production by the SMEs with environmentally conscious designs and sustainability through innovation in batik product life cycle design. By using LCA cradle to gate methodology with CML-IA method, the environmental burden occurred during batik stamp production is estimated. The estimation results are transformed into several recommendations for more sustainable batik life cycle design by SMEs in Surakarta, Indonesia.

Palm waste upcycling has become a national policy due to the increase of palm oil plantations for alternative energy production. Because of the large waste volumes of 5.4 million tons per year, this study explores the potential use of palm wastes for innovative materials and eco-products as well as their commercial applications. The concept of eco-design was applied at the very beginning of designing phase by considering the use of waste as raw materials. Currently, there is no alternative application of palm wastes beyond being incinerated for heat or being turned into particleboards. The potential impacts from transport were minimized in the production of tableware by sourcing palm wastes from local palm mills at the nearest location. Processing procedure of fiber preparation included sundrying and grinding the palm fiber, followed by steam explosion (pressure at 18 bars, temperature at 200 °C, for 5 min). After that, the treated fibers were ground to the smallest size (lesser than 0.1 mm) to be mixed homogeneously with melamine compound. The ratio of palm fiber compound varied from 10, 20, and 30 % by weight. The goal of the new compound aims at maximum fiber content that complies with eco- or bio-based environmental product declaration. There are two sets of design: origami (inspired by a Japanese paper folding) and organic (inspired by mushroom forms). The new palm-melamine bio-composites were tested for their qualities in accordance with the required industrial standards: TISI 1245. Using palm fiber of 10 % of the total weight gave the best quality results, while the higher fiber content failed for water absorption as well as acid resistance tests. To facilitate the commercial application, the optimal production conditions at the lab scale were adjusted for actual industrial processes of a local melamine manufacture. Life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to ensure that the use of palm-melamine bio-composite had the potential reduction on all impact categories. Prototypes were made and carbon footprinting was performed to support the environmental product declaration in terms of kgCO₂e per piece. Through the integration of eco-design and LCA, the tableware from palm-melamine bio-composites has been developed and supported with environmental footprint information, so that customers can better engage in environmental practices.

This study is to explore the relationship between different consumer’s lifestyle and its aesthetic preferences to eco-products. Thus, this study conducts the literature review, an expert interview, and an online pretest for constructing consumer lifestyle attributes as well as aesthetic attributes for the questionnaire survey with Likert scale. The lamp as one of three product samples used in the survey is chosen for analysis in this paper. The result of factor analysis indicates six eco-lifestyle factors: luxury life, up-to-date fashion, pursuing aesthetics for the living, protection of environment, ego-expression, and taste of craft. The result of cluster analysis shows four groups of consumer lifestyle: “pursuing product aesthetics for life but ignoring the environment,” “pursuing luxury and fashion with less awareness of environmental protection,” “simple and plain,” and “green Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS).” Furthermore, the group of “pursuing product aesthetics for life but ignoring the environmental protection” emphasizes personal achievement and product design with aesthetics.