Objective
The objective is – using a minimum of effort - to create an overview of the environmental aspects that are significant to the product and the product life cycle.

Content
The course is centred on one of the company’s products and covers two one-day seminars, separated by a period of “home work”. Consultancy assistance is provided in the period between the two seminars, if needed. The development process is based on the method "Assessment of product concepts", which is an overall method for performing environmental assessments of product concepts for electrical and electronic products. The method introduces simple tools for calculating environmental impact. Aside from conditions, which can be described in numbers, this also includes a qualitative assessment of aspects such as the product’s positioning in relation to environmental labelling, green purchasing, competing products, technology etc. Particular attention is given to demands made by the WEEE and RoHS directives and the expected requirements from the implementation of the new EuP directive, which places demands on design and “environmental performance” for energy-using products.
The method is documented at ecodesignguide.dk under "Assessment of product concepts".  

Participants
The course can be carried out for one company, e.g. with the participation of product development task groups or as a joint course for multiple companies. In both cases, products from the participating companies constitute the point of departure.

Benefits for your company:

• Key personnel competences
• Uncover the most significant environmental impacts, and identify areas where more knowledge may be needed
• Knowledge transfer onto similar product groups in the company
• Be in the vanguard of developments – e.g. in relation to the EuP directive
• Get a competitive edge in the market – the ability to document the environmental impact throughout the life cycle of the product may be the key to an increased market share and sales. More and more companies (e.g. public sector customers) demand documentation of products’ environmental life cycle impact, and they choose their supplier based on this documentation, among other.

Also, see IPU Eco design