Materials selection in sustainable lighting product design : an industrial case study

The sustainable product design process requires methods/tools to support decision-making activities of designers along the design process. Although these are also needed in traditional product design processes, these become crucial in sustainable design because in order to design sustainable products their environmental impact have to be assessed, and methods/tools/techniques are required for the assessment. This paper will show and discuss through a case study the use of prescriptive and analysis tools to select eco-materials; and also how databases and some analytical software-based tools can help designers to be aware at an early stage of the design process of the impact specific materials and industrial processes will have in the final product.