Content

1. Environmental Problems as a Result of Industrial and Economic Success

2. An Ecologically Efficient Economy

3. Strategies for an Ecologically Efficient Economy

4. Sale of Function instead of Product - a Basis for Ecological Efficiency

5. Outlook

1. Environmental Problems as a Result of Industrial and Economic Success

Some industrialised countries are known to be particularly progressive in the protection of the environment. They have enforced the use of environmental technologies by strict laws. Sewage treatment plant, orderly refuse disposal and flue-gas scrubbing in power stations are examples of such measures. The results can be seen in the obvious improvements in air and water quality. However, the sneaking dying of forests, the severe formation of ozone in conurbations in summer, or probable global-warming show that the results are deceptive. From an ecological point of view, the improved quality of the environment would seem to allow a drastic increase in industrial production. Thus West Germany produced nearly three times as many cars in 1990 as in 1960 (4.1 rnillions), five times as many vacuum cleaners (5.5 millions), and more than six times as many drinks bottles (9.4 billions). Even if it is possible to reduce the ecological damage per product unit, increased production and increased use of products leads to increased ecological damage. Not without good reason do countries like the USA, Canada, Japan, and Germany make a disproportionate contribution to world ecological damage, although they have a relatively high standard of technical environmental protection measures. Economic success is a core problem in protection of the environment: the current high level of industrial production is one of the main reasons for global environmental problems.
 

2. An Ecologically Efficient Economy

The big increase in industrial production in central Europe is, in part, due to the increased material demands of the population. Just as important is the often overlooked fact that modern products have ever shorter lives, and the life of a product is limited by it wearing out, or becoming out of date. The result is that the highly developed economies convert raw materials, by way of products, faster and faster into refuse. In the course of this process, ecological damage occurs at every stage in the product life-cycle, in the extraction of raw materials, in their processing, in the production of goods, right through to their use and final disposal.

This process is a waste of ecological and economical resources. If, through ecological efficiency, a way can be found to fulfil demand with fewer products, then ecological damage will be significantly reduced; less raw material is produced and processed, the ecological damage due to production is reduced, and fewer goods must be disposed of. Such an effective strategy augments conventional environmental protection. The next two sections describe concepts for an ecologically efficient economy.
 

3. Strategies for an Ecologically Efficient Economy

3.1 Using the Total Technical Service Life of Products

Often, in the highly industrialised countries it cannot be taken for granted that the full technical service of products is utilised. Examples of this practice are throw-away products such as packaging, telephone cards, even cameras. Some electronic goods are discarded very quickly because new, supposedly better, products appear on the market. Other, still functionally useful, products are thrown away because their external appearance is no longer fashionable. To make full use of the technical service life of products, throw-away products must be limited to applications where they make ecological and economical sense. Products must have a timeless design, and be upgraded, or modernised (see sections 3.3 and 3.4).

3.2 Producing long-lived Products

It is self-evident that not only should the technical service life be used to the full, but that products should be designed and built for long life. Within limits, the technical service life can be determined by the manufacturer. A long-lasting product, as the sum of its component parts, must have specially high quality and resistance to wear. However, a product can only be con sidered long-lived if:

• it is simple to maintain and repair
• spare parts are available for many years
• there is comprehensive documentation about the product.
   

3.3 Upgrading Products

Products that still function, yet no longer fulfil the increased expectations of their users can be upgraded. Upgrading is the improvement of a product already in use by addition or exchange of individual components. The extension of a wall unit or a computer memory are examples of quantitative upgrading. Upgrading can also give a product a new level of performance, for example fitting a sorter to an existing copier (qualitative upgrading). To permit upgrading, products must be of modular construction, and consist of standardised, interchangeable components.

3.4 Modernising Products

The strategies for long-lived products, and full use of the technical working life conflict with the aims of technical development  when products have been in service for a time, they tend to become obsolete. In such cases, upgrading can help if it modernises the product. An example from the computer world: several PC manufacturers will exchange the processors in obsolete computers for their more recent, higher performance successors. Instead of the whole PC having to be disposed of, as is still common practice, only a single circuit board is involved. The product designers have an even more important role when a product is to be modernised by upgrading, than in the case of static upgrading  they must take future development trends into account. Modernisation of technically obsolete products by upgrading may be limited by major technological developments, e.g. the change from analogue to digital technology.

3.5 Repairing Products

In the strong economies, repair of products, particularly consumer electronics goods, is rare. Television sets and stereos, but also products like electric irons are often discarded before the end of their technical working life, perhaps because spare parts, or the technical information needed for repair are not available. Easy-to-repair products are of modular design, and simple to dismantle and reassemble, they have nondestructive detachable fasteners, and both spare parts and technical documentation are readily available.

3.6 Rebuilding Products

At some point, every product reaches the time when it is no longer usable. However hard they may try, the designers of complex products can seldom confer the same service life on all components. Not all parts are subjected to similar loads and wear. In a copier, for example, the mechanical components suffer from wear on every cycle, but the optical system not at all. Other parts can be economically brought back to an ias new' condition. With this in mind, the idea is natural that, at the end of its service life, a product can be returned to a condition in which it can fulfil its function - to rebuild it. As opposed to repair, in which a par ticular fault is corrected, rebuilding involves a general, industrial renovation of the product.

After rebuilding, the product has the same quality as a new one. Instead of a complete product being consigned to refuse and replaced by a new one, rebuilding enables a significant proportion of the parts, materials, energy, and labour to be reused. The result is that ecological damage is reduced to a fraction, and at less cost. Requirements for rebuilding are, among others (Becker; Nissen, 1995):
 

• simple product structure
• employment of nondestructive detachable fasteners for the majority of applications
• clear identification of  parts and sub-assemblies
• parts that wear should be cheap
• suitable for upgrading/modernisation
• comprehensive technical documentation.

Rebuilding is in use today, for example in the automobile industry for engines, drive shafts, and water pumps. Rebuilding a car starter motor uses only about one eleventh of the energy required to make a new one, and a ninth of the raw materials (Fraunhofer-Institut IPA, 1991, p.3). Rebuilding is used also for trucks, buses, railway wagons, and trarns. Rank Xerox, the Dutch manufacturer of copiers, sells rebuilt machines under the slogan "I was a copier once before". Rebuilding offers an opportunity to modernise products, and adapt them to current requirements. In this way machine tools are fitted with modern computer controls, buses and trucks with better brake systems or engines.

3. 7 Designing reutilisation-compatible Products; reutilising high Quality Products

All measures to improve ecological efficiency cannot prevent the fact that one day every product must be disposed of. Planning for the future must therefore include a well-ordered refuse disposal, which permits the utilization of materials at a high quality level. In spite of much activity the successes to date have been very modest. When designing products the following aspects should (among others) be considered (Becker; Nissen,1995):

• use a minimum number of materials
• use materials that can be recycled
• avoid using harmful substances
• avoid using composite materials
• use a simple product structure
• keep the number of joints and connections small
• employ nondestructive detachable fasteners
• keep the number of tools needed for disassembly small.

3.8 Choice of ecologically-friendly Technology

By careful selection of the appropriate technology, the environmental damage caused by a product during its use can be influenced. For example wrist-watches: clockwork watches produce no refuse and consume no resources in use, whereas quartz watches need millions of mercury-containing batteries yearly, with no improvement in accuracy.
 

4. Sale of Function instead of Products - a Basis for Ecological Efficiency

Strategies for ecological efficiency can significantly reduce ecological damage without making classical environmental protection superfluous. In spite of their advantages, the strategies described are often limited in application. Two important reasons for this are:

• damaging the environment costs nothing, or very little
• enterprises and economies live from selling products.

Companies therefore have almost no interest in strategies such as producing long-lived products, or upgrading, modernising, repairing, and rebuilding products. A new idea provides an impulse: sale of the use of a product instead of its ownership. Companies remain owners of their products, and sell the use of them for a fee based on time and performance. They carry the risks of the product failing and technical obsolescence, and undertake maintenance and repair. In that respect the sale of function differs decisively from leasing, which is comrnon practice in the industrialised countries. In leasing the customer carries the risks of failure and technical obsolescence.

A company that sells function can profit from its products more the longer they last. Similarly, it has an interest in upgrading, modemising, repairing, and rebuilding its products. A company is particularly effective. if it can fulfil the wishes of its customers over a long period with a low level of production, and a low consumption of materials and services. Some experience in the field of sale of function already exists: a subsidiary of Mercedes Benz AG provides this option for trucks, and the British company Thorn EMI sells the use of domestic appliances, consumer electronics, computers, telephones, and furniture.

When selling use, it is no longer the product that is the focus of interest but the function. In America the power supply utilities finance measures to save energy, instead of building new power stations (which would be the conventional product orientation). For the customer, the function is the same (e.g. keeping rooms light and warrn), but the energy requirement sinks. The power utility only needs to invest a fraction of the money that would have been neces sary for a new power station. The customer pays the same as before, and the power saved pays for the financial support he receives. Although there are limits to the application of sale of function, and it is only suitable for certain products, it will be of great significance for the future. It has the effect of driving a number of individual strategies for higher ecological efficiency, and can mould them into an integrated concept.
 

5. Outlook

Ecological efficiency supplements the existing, rather technical forms of environmental protection. It helps satisfy existing needs with less ecological damage than is currently normal. Through intelligent measures and organisation it leads both to ecological success, and to reduced consumption of economic resources. The individual strategies demand comprehensive services, and promote the local economy: customer relations, repair, rebuilding, and modernising must be decentralised, and are labour-intensive. Product-oriented ecological protection saves more money than it costs; as opposed to much environmental technology, it is not the subject of patent protection, and opens international market opportunities. The irmmediate problem is to get rid of a range-of obstacles in the minds of users and enterprises. In the light of the ecological damage caused by industrial society, this is a very urgent task.
 

References:

Becker, Andreas: "Umweltschutz - Abschied von den Illusionen: Neue Strategien für den ökologischen Wandel". Reinbek: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995.

Becker, Andreas; Nissen, Ulrich: "Produktplanung"; in Alijah, Renate (Editor): "Praxishandbuch betriebliches Umweltmanagement". Kissing: Weka Fachverlag für technische Führungskräfte, 1995.

Fraunhofer Institut für Produktionstechnik und Automatisierung (IPA): "Energy and Raw Material Use in New Production and Remanufacturing of Automotive Parts: A Comparison". Unpublished. Stuttgart, 1991.