Green Deal | Develop products that conserve resources and contain fewer pollutants
A central component of the Green Deal is the Ecodesign regulations. According to this, significantly stricter requirements apply to products: They should, among other things, be durable, reusable, retrofittable, repairable, energy-efficient and free of worrying chemicals - i.e. as resource-efficient as possible and low in pollutants. In the future, companies will only be able to bring products onto the market that comply with ecodesign regulations. The substance bans that are being added in rapid succession are not making it any easier. Many companies find themselves caught between current market conditions and the uncertainty of how to build new product strategies and structures to meet requirements.
Product development as a central adjusting screw
Design departments and development teams are central levers: Sustainability-oriented product development requires teams with different expertise and skills. In addition to previous design practices, material data, legal know-how and business ideas that optimize the use of resources must be incorporated into the development process. The art in the future will be to reconnect different aspects.
Resource-saving and low-pollutant product development requires new alliances
Product manufacturers encounter further challenges: their suppliers cannot provide the material data necessary for environmental assessments and life cycle analyses. And individual companies do not have sufficient market power to demand changes from material manufacturers. Only together can they achieve proactive supply chain management build.
New business models, for example for sharing offers or for the return and secondary marketing of long-lasting products, also require new alliances.
Itp:ne can use its expertise to help align product development processes with the requirements of the Green Deal and to build new alliances.
The transment approach offers a framework for opening up new possibilities and systemic solutions.
Chemical and process innovations: Evaluate solutions for more sustainable chemistry at an early stage
Insight
To develop resource-saving products, innovations in the area of “more sustainable chemistry” are necessary. In the “More sustainable chemistry along the leather supply chain” project, a team investigated, among other things, what potential for improvement exists for process chemicals. Technical, economic and organizational aspects were taken into account. Experiments in an industrial milli/micro reactor led to platform chemicals from renewable raw materials in more efficient processes. The team also developed a pragmatic approach to evaluate new manufacturing processes at an early stage using a simplified life cycle analysis (LCA).
Design guidelines for leather products with lower emissions: Integrate Green Deal requirements at an early stage
Insight
Requirements for product design are a central driver for integrating the Green Deal criteria into the company's internal processes at an early stage: In the project "More sustainable chemistry in the leather supply chain", a handbook was created in a sub-project with actors from industry, science and NGOs the design of “sustainable leather” - with a particular focus on the role of chemicals along the life cycle.
Bicycle development realigned with itp:ne: A Pedelec for the Green Deal
Insight
In the “Innovative Local Mobility” project, an interdisciplinary team from industrial design, bicycle construction, environmental law and resource efficiency developed the concept for a new type of pedelec with the e-cargo bike manufacturer Ca Go. The requirements of the Green Deal were already anchored in the specifications. This resulted in a concept for a long-lasting, repairable and modular bike.