Reducing Conflicts of Interest in Eco-design: The Relation of Innovation Management and Eco-design in the Automotive Sec
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 o
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Abstract 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. Keywords Eco-design • Future waste • Innovation • Management • Batteries
1 Introduction Keeping an eye on life cycles turns the R&D phase of products and associated processes into a challenge to companies and their suppliers. Characteristics of emerging product lines also cover environmentally compatible design, besides economic efficiency and functions. Requirements of target groups and the framework of standards force companies to improve their competitiveness on the market. To handle this, innovation management is integrated in the company’s strategic framework. But eco-design is not. Why not?
T.E. Schwarz (*) • K. Schopf • A. Arnberger Chair of Waste Processing Technology and Waste Management, Montanuniversitaet Leoben, Leoben, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Japan 2017 M. Matsumoto et al. (eds.), Sustainability Through Innovation in Product Life Cycle Design, EcoProduction, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0471-1_3
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2 Eco-design in Strategic Management Johannson [1] describes eco-design as reducing the environmental impact of a product’s life cycle while preserving or even improving other attributes like price and function. So the aim of eco-design is to streamline a product in various directions. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the extensive introduction of the principles of eco-design in strategic and innovation management. Basic methods applied in both management areas are reviewed and transferred to the automotive battery production sector, used as a case study. Strategic management, being a part of business economics, is closely tied to product policies and the main goals of a company. It aims at an encompassing view of a company, while eco-design strives for an encompassing view of a product. Various methods used in the field will be considered and discussed in the following, focussing on eco-design. An important tool of strategic management is SWOT analysis. Four main targets are addressed: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats [2]. A company’s strength, as it emerges from supporting eco-design, might be identified as a public image of taking environmental care and se
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