Study on Cradle to Cradle Certified Standards Applied to Product Design

Abstract

In recent years the environmental protection becomes an issue that can’t be ignored globally The challenges posed by the commercial industry onto environment result in a lot of cases that apply the green asset strategy to improve the development and application of green products Currently the factors influencing green design have covered not only the product but also the overall corporate environment and the social corporate responsibility Furthermore Prof Braungart promotes the new principle of Cradle to Cradle (C2C) which facilitates the green products to achieve the safety with no pollution and no waste on the basis of capital conforming to the social equity However the C2C standards are more strict and complicated than the related environmental protection certification standards in Taiwan It is difficult for the industrial designer or R&D engineer to make decision when developing the green products because it is unable to find the desired design specification and code Thus the purpose of the study is to propose the product development system workflow that complies with C2C certification so the enterprise can gradually meet the certification standards The study will explore the difficulties of the current environmental protection trend encountered by the enterprise and the C2C view After the literature analysis on procedure design green design principle and life cycle assessment it conducts semi-structured interview on 6 experts and scholars to sort out a total of five dimensions including the life cycle assessment C2C product development requirements current trend environmental protection trend enterprise product development method and strategy for implementing C2C considerations and dependent factors of the enterprise for implementing C2C It further generates the application principles and procedures as well as integrates the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to work out the system workflow and suggestions that meet C2C standards After that it takes a car perfume that is not very complicated as an example to perform frontend theory test in which it proposes three concept design schemes conducts assessment and analysis and further make decision on the development of the next stage The study results show the product view suggestions for implementing C2C based on the current situation of the enterprise as listed below: (1) The enterprise can gradually make improvements based on the current capability; (2) It should select the natural material initially; (3) It should add innovative after-sale service system in the recycling way; (4) Applying the product volume label related to environmental protection may facilitate the enterprise to improve corporate image; (5) It should continuously study the logistic integrated scheme with better environmental protection benefits; (6) It should implement C2C product development to become a leading role in environmental protection in the industry; (7) It should take the long view to make long-term cost planning and conversion The suggested development principles for the products that meet C2C certification are listed as below: (1) It should understand the correlation between the product development and C2C principle implementation in each stage as well as the stage to implement each principle For example the C2C personnel training and the instruction of the environmental protection laws in the manufacturing and selling regions should be carried out in the initial stage of the development During the concept design it should focus on the eco-friendly safety of the raw material and the validity of the product In the product planning stage it should release the statement of water resource management for the enterprise In the volume production stage it should monitor the power and the direct greenhouse emission In the after-sale stage it may guide the user to improve the recycling principles (2) It should integrate QFD to guarantee the quality features as required and to output the products smoothly (3) During the implementation it may consult the instruction institutions such as EPEA Intl Umweltforschung Gmbh Taiwan Branch ITRI Green Energy and Environment Research Laboratories Foundation of Taiwan Industry Service Taiwan Environmental Management Association Taiwan Plastics Industry Development Center and Academia The above information can serve as reference for the industries so as to promote more enterprises to carry out C2C product development

Date of Award	2015 Sept 4
Original language	English
Supervisor	Shuo-Fang Liu (Supervisor)