The design-guide is developed in Denmark in a cooperation between:
Danish companies in the electronics sector, especially Ericsson Diax A/S, Grundfos A/S, Kamstrup A/S, H.J.Hansen Elektromiljø A/S, Tellabs Denmark A/S, Focon Electronic Systems A/S and Sauer-Danfoss A/S have been involved in both setting up the requirements and the final testing. Last, but not least, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has financed the project.
It should be noted, that the DesignGuide does not necessarely reflect the views of the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.
This Designer's Guide is best viewed with a screen resolution larger than 800x600, and with either NetScape or Explorer from version 3.x or newer.
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The Adobe Acrobat Reader is used for viewing special documents. This tool (latest version 5.0) can be downloaded for free from here: |
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For using the Environmental Calculators the Microsoft Excel 97 spreadsheet program is needed as a minimum, and if you want to use the database it is also necessary to have the Microsoft Access 2000 database program.
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| Links placed within the text opens in a separate window, which can be enlarged if necessary, and closed without interfering with the main window. | |
This set of tools is made for all those involved in design and development of electrical and electronic equipment, for example:
The tools tries to cover all the needs in a company, which has decided to make improvements in the environmental aspects of its products, and to have this as an ongoing standard activity in the development process. Such an activity is normally referred to as “Design for Environment (DfE)” or "Eco-conscious Design".
The main sections are:
Section |
Content |
| Green Tutorial | Training in the basic understanding of how products in general interact with the environment. |
| Implementation of Eco-Design |
The section will outline the tasks and responsibilities involved in Eco-Design, and give some examples of how to choose and measure environmental metrics |
| Assessment of product concepts | The purpose of this section is to provide a tool to perform an easy environmental assessment already at the very early stage of product development, when the product concept is being determined.
It is the ambition to form a general view of environmental issues being of relevance to the product and to acquire a basic understanding about the environmental aspects of the product and the life the product will lead, once it has left the drawing board and the manufacturing facilities. |
| Eco-Design Guidelines | The guidelines cover all the standard environmental aspects of electrical and electronic equipment (materials, production, use-phase, end-of-life), and give advises on how to minimize the environmental impacts from such equipment.
There is also information about specific requirements coming from legislation and various environmental labelling schemes. |
| Environmental Calculators |
A core functionality of this Eco-Design guide is a module of “Environmental Calculators”. The Environmental Calculators enables the designer to compare the environmental impacts from the entire life cycle of different design alternatives. This can be done already in the concept phase, with very few data available and before the design is finalised. These calculations are based on a database with values representing a simplified environmental impact assessment, using only two selected parameters to describe the impacts. One is the Energy parameter, representing the total primary energy used. The other is the Resource parameter, representing the resource depletion involved. There are three calculators in the tool: • Calculator I is intended - with a minimum of effort - to give a very rough overview of the environmental aspects of the life cycle of a product. • Calculator II can perform a more detailed assessment and material declarations based on generic LCI-data for electronic components. These data have been extended in March 2005 reflecting the implementation of the RoHS directive. • Calculator III can predict the consequences of different end-of-life scenarios based on the design of the EEE-product. Key-values for end-of-life can be calculated. |
| Hazardous Chemicals | This section gives inspiration on how metrics for reduction of dangerous chemicals/substances can be set during the development of new products. It contains "Tools for identification of listed chemicals" and simple tools for prioritizing your effort regarding chemical substances. |
| Links | The section has links to other Eco-Design sites, legislation-updates, databases etc. |