Our eco-design studies

At RDC Environment, we offer comprehensive eco-design services that draw on our over 30 years’ expertise in Life Cycle Assessment and our ability to engage stakeholders in environmental innovation!

Our proven methodology draws on the best techniques in collective intelligence and innovation project management, ensuring the environment is no longer seen as a constraint but as a lever for better design.

Our method

Training teams: engaging teams with a shared objective

A crucial step, we convey the fundamentals of the approach to engage the teams. “Recycling”, “circularity”, “carbon accounting”… are concepts often familiar to our clients but rarely considered within the context of systemic product development, taking into account its entire life cycle and the service it provides. We revisit the basics to explain the key challenges of eco-design* and to highlight the importance of bringing all the company’s functions together around the table to arrive at relevant solutions.

* defined according to ISO 14006 and NF X30 264 standards

Analysing the product: understanding the product and its environmental impacts

Whether conducting a full LCA of an existing product or a ‘screening’ LCA of a product concept not yet fully defined, our LCA consultants are able to identify the main contributors to the environmental impacts of the system to be eco-designed, thereby directing the discussion towards where the environmental issues lie. Taking action where the challenge lies: this is the essential condition for distinguishing eco-design from greenwashing!

Creative divergence phase: generating eco-design ideas

Our team of eco-design experts is trained in facilitating collective intelligence workshops to guide teams towards productive idea generation. The key phrase for this stage is “there are no bad ideas”, as an idea that thinks outside the box can potentially lead to innovative lines of thought and new ways of perceiving the problem. We engage your teams in this spirit, through a collaborative workshop format, and are there to ensure that the framework for collective intelligence-based idea generation is adhered to.

Analysis of environmental potential: an initial prioritisation

Drawing on our experience, realistic or conservative assumptions and a simplified LCA analysis, we quantify the environmental potential of the ideas generated. This stage allows for an initial prioritisation of the eco-design ideas generated.

Convergence workshop: concrete and pragmatic prioritisation based on your business challenges

We offer a second workshop for your teams, this time to incorporate the other challenges facing your products in order to prioritise eco-design actions. Technical and economic challenges, user experience challenges… All these aspects are covered to prioritise eco-design ideas based on both pragmatic feasibility criteria and their environmental potential.

Action plan: the culmination of the process

We provide you with an action plan, featuring concrete short-, medium- and long-term objectives that take into account all the standard criteria of a product development specification whilst adding an environmental component. Our aim is for you to leave with a roadmap that applies directly to the product under consideration. The action plan can also serve as a reference for your future developments and promote the integration of environmental considerations into an eco-innovation approach.

Final analysis

Once the development choices have been finalised, our team can carry out a final Life Cycle Assessment of the eco-designed product, in order to quantify the environmental benefits associated with the eco-design approach. This helps to understand what worked well, what could have been improved, and embeds eco-design within a continuous improvement process. Finally, it is a good way to integrate and quantify eco-design within organisational environmental objectives.