Question:
What's the ecodesign philosophy?

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Ecodesignrefers to a cyclical system of manufacturing, design, distribution, and recycling in which the environment is carefully taken into account. This paradigm may seem like common sense, but strangely no one has adopted it until now. We consume a lot of energy, materials, and foodstuffs, and release a large amount of environmental pollutants into the air. We used to think that we could go on forever relying on the air and water to purify themselves through dilution, but because of the law of conservation of mass, this can never be. Finally we have arrived at a point where it has become impossible to continue our old ways of thinking. Given the expected worsening of the global ecology from now on, and considering the explosive growth of the population, we have to create a radical new vision and strategy. When the population reaches 9 billion in 2050, the only way for us all to have satisfying lifestyles is to create a rich ecolife. "Rich" in this case means having


various services available. "Ecolife" means a lifestyle with an extreme reduction in consumption of energy resources and emission of environmental pollutants. And to make our
ecolives rich yet simple, I use the phrase, "changing from
consuming goods to consuming services" to emphasize to
everyone from manufacturers, consumers, and administrators, that they must all radically change their focus. This can be achieved through ecodesign.

Question:
What exactly is taking place in areas where ecodesign has become popular?

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The Europeans incorporate environmental thinking into their business activities, and have started practicing ecodesign. Specifically, they design products with as much ecoefficiency (the ratio of a product's utility and added value to its environmental impact) as possible. For example, there are energy-saving apartments in which the power consumption during the winter is cut back by 75% that of normal apartments. Providing the same service (in this case, a living space) with a 75% reduction in power consumption means that the energy efficiency has been improved fourfold ("factor 4").

Also what I'm focusing on recently is the challenge of developing "sustainable enterprises," products, and services that can support the coming population of 9 billion individuals. There are several organizations that are making strides toward this goal. For example, The Dow Chemical
Company in the U.S.A. originally made plastics from petroleum, but has recently started a venture to build huge farms and plants in Nebraska and is producing 140 thousand tons of bio-polymers annually from corn. So this is a company that went from using oil to using agricultural products to manufacture its plastics. Furthermore, the American NGO (non-governmental organization), Climate Neutral Network, is carrying out its 0 greenhouse gas emissions certification service at various companies. The first product to be certified by Climate Neutral Network is the flooring material "Solenium" by Interface Inc. One hundred percent of the energy used in the manufacturing process is reusable, no greenhouse gasses are produced, and the material is 100% recyclable.

Another example is the Swedish home electronics manufacturer Electrolux, which is having an "EcoEco
(Economy and Ecology) Savings" campaign to look for economic and environmental savings. If all of the houses in London converted to the environmentally-efficient home electronics from Electrolux, Great Britain could save 22 billion Euros a year, 17 terawatts of energy, 12.07 million tons of CO₂, and the amount of water that flows over Niagara falls in 30 hours. These figures are advertised on Electrolux's web site, and make you realize that we must adopt products like these all throughout society. Of course in Japan we also have a movement towards zero-emissions, but the Europeans have already taken a giant leap from the stage of starting to raise environmental efficiency, to creating a sustainable economic strategy that includes product development.