Guidelines for Environmentally Friendly Design
(1) Environmental Assessment Standards for Product Design
We have established assessment standards in eight areas: ease of recycling and treatment, resource conservation, energy conservation, long-term usability, ease of collection and transport, safety and environmental protectiveness, information disclosure, and packaging. These standards are used in conducting assessments during each inspection (initial design, intermediate design, and final design).
(2) Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) Standards
The LCA standards are used for preliminary assessments of energy use, CO2 emissions, NOx emissions, SOx emissions, and the like throughout the lifecycle of a product. These standards are used in conducting assessments during each inspection (initial design, intermediary design, and final design).
(3) Environmentally Friendly Product Design Guidelines
These guidelines establish design and machining and assembly methods that incorporate long-life design, energy conservation design, resource conservation design, and materials and parts selection guidelines, as well as standards for the recycling and disposal of products.
(4) Standards on Toxic Substances in Products
These standards guide the selection of environmentally friendly parts and materials in the design stage. Currently, efforts are being made to eliminate or reduce substances from a total of 44 substance groups: 15 prohibited substance groups and 14 voluntarily controlled substance groups specified in the Green Procurement Study Standardization Guidelines, and substances in 15 voluntarily controlled substance groups nominated by the Group.
(5) Recycled Product Design Standards
These standards encourage the three Rs: the reduction of waste and the reuse and recycling of used products.
(6) Environmentally Friendly Material Selection Standards
These standards state that the use of halogen-based flame retardants is to be avoided. The standardized specifications of materials also state that the use of structural steel plates containing hexavalent chromium is to be avoided and assign chrome-free steel plates as a substitute.
(7) Energy-saving Design Guidelines
These guidelines state that energy is to be conserved in the manufacturing and product use stages. They introduce energy conservation design technologies for products and manufacturing.
Environmentally Friendly Design and Assessment Standards
Environmental Assessment Standards for Product Design
| (1) When | Initial design inspection/intermediate design inspection/ final design inspection |
|---|---|
| (2) Assessment items | Twenty-nine items including ease of recycling and treatment, resource conservation, energy conservation, long-term usability, ease of collection and transport, safety and environmental protectiveness, information disclosure, and packaging. |
| (3) Evaluation criteria | Score is zero points if legal regulations are not satisfied, four points if legal regulations are satisfied and an improvement of 30% or more is achieved, three points for an improvement of 15% or more, two points for an improvement of 5% or more, and one point for an improvement of less than 5%. |
| (4) Pass/fail judgment criteria | In order to pass, there must be no assessment items with a score of zero, and the total score must be greater than that of the old model. A “failed” judgment is given if any of the assessment items has a score of zero or if the total score is the same as or lower than that of the old model. The improvement guidelines target an improvement of 25% or more, and more than anything seek to incorporate environmental-burden reduction into design. |