Green Design

Environmental effects were ignored during the design stage for new products and processes in the past. Waste was common in material production, manufacturing, and distribution. Hazardous wastes were dumped in the most convenient fashion possible, ignoring possible environmental damage, and inefficient energy use resulted in high operating costs. It was realized in the 1970s that to achieve a real effect on reducing product- and process-related environmental impacts, environmental considerations should be built into product development at the earliest opportunity, and customers should be steered toward the greener options. Rapid industrialization, regulatory pressure, higher requirements from customers, open markets, increased demands to defend or expand market share and to create the ability to attract foreign investments, and an increase in competitiveness between companies locally and globally ...