Implications of the integrated product policy (IPP) in new products design and development

Unavoidable trend toward developing more eco-friendly products within a sustainable growth scenario, handles several implications from all entities related to the product life-cycle: product value-chain actors, consumer/user and most likely, new services for Retrieving, Reusing and Recycling, practically non-existing nowadays. Recently issued Green Book on Integrated Product Policy (IPP) by the European Commission (7/02/2001) basically propose several parallel action lines: Creating an environmental culture among all actors along the product life-cycle: manufacturer, users (by eco-utilization), after sales service on his more comprehensive meaning (from the manufacturing gate to the product end-of-life; instead of the old: From cradle to grave, this should be: "From leaving-home to grave") Fostering programs from the Government bodies and general administration aiming to incentive manufacturers to designing and producing eco-friendly products, as well as incentiving consumers to purchasing green products, etc. Fostering local administrations to create, promote and subsidize the necessary end-of-life (Retrieving, Re-using and Recycling) systems. On the contrary, creating new mechanisms to penalise excessive environmental costs based on the principle: "Polluting has to pay". Confining the problem just to the boundaries of industrial design which is the most important phase on the product life (birth) where actual performance of the product in real life is fully committed several questions arise as: What are the implications of this unavoidable approach from the perspective of industrial development and design units? How can existing tools and methodologies help industrial designers to cope with all these new rules and standards to come? Present paper pretends to give an overview of this new scenario and to present a theoretical proposal of the product development process including all these new issues.