New sustainability indices for product design employing environmental impact and risk reduction: case study on gasoline blends

摘要

Product life-cycle design is a pathway from concept to research and development, from manufacturing to marketing and distribution. In the current approach to product design two objectives are broadly of stakeholders' and customers' interest: product specification and price. Sustainable product design, however, requires that environmental, energy, and safety issues, among others, be addressed. This paper introduces a new methodology employing three sustainability indices related to environment, energy and safety for a variety of applications including product design. The indices can be used individually or together, and it is possible to add other metrics depending on the nature of products and processes. To test the indices, blends of a typical gasoline as a product design case study were investigated.