Sustainable product design using CAD: a case study in an Indian rotary switches manufacturing organisation

Sustainability is gaining importance in contemporary manufacturing organisations. Modern design engineers need approaches for creating environmentally friendly products. In this context, this paper reports a case study carried out in an Indian rotary switches manufacturing organisation. A component of the rotary switch has been modelled using computer-aided design. Then, the sustainability analysis has been carried out for determining the environmental impact. The environmental impact has been measured in terms of carbon footprint, energy consumption and air/water impacts. The handle design has been modified to minimise the environmental impact. The results of this case study indicate that appropriate modifications in design could lead to the development of sustainable design with minimal environmental impact.     

可持续发展与绿色产品设计实现的途径

本文论述了产品设计与可持续发展的关系,认为绿色产品设计是实现可持续发展的有效手段之一,绿色产品设计包括寿命周期评价、生态设计和可持续产品设计等。低物质化、再循环、生态标志,宣传教育和政府行为等是绿色产品设计可以采取的方法和途径。     

Putting consumers first in design for sustainable behaviour: a case study of reducing environmental impacts of cold appliance use

To slow down the increasing environmental degradation, design for sustainable behaviour (DfSB) has emerged in sustainable design aiming to promote behavioural change through design innovations to reduce environmental and social impacts from the demand side or consumer side. This paper presents a practice-based journey to investigate the process and results of the application of social-psychological theories into sustainable design. Focusing on the behaviour-related impacts of products and services during the use stage, a Design Behaviour Intervention Model (DBIM) is developed through the analysis and synthesis of the social-psychological theories and behaviour-changing strategies. The DBIM indicates that an in-depth study of consumer behaviour is the preliminary step in DfSB, which determines the application of design strategies and potentially the effectiveness of design interventions. A case study is presented to demonstrate the application of the model. The results show that consumer behaviour insights offer rich resources to assist designers in sustainable design innovation. Product-based design suggestions and a proposed solution highlight that the application of DBIM coupled with consumer involvement throughout the design process could produce desirable and sustainable patterns of household fridge use. Finally, the structured consideration of behavioural change and their possible application in DfSB are discussed.     

Sustainable Development and Strategic Thinking

From an economic point of view, the industrial economy is efficient to overcome situations of a scarcity of goods. From a technological point of view, the resource efficiency of the manufacturing processes of the industrial economy has been permanently improved during the last 200 years. In addition, cleaner processes have been developed. However, from an ecologic point of view, an increasing world population with increasing consumption has produced a ＂global footprint＂ which approaches the carrying capacity of the planet. A circular economy and its high-value spin-offs-a lake economy and a performance or functional service economy-can fulfil customers＇ needs with considerably less resource consumption, less environmental impairment in production and considerably less end-of-life product waste, especially in situations of affluence, when a considerable stock of physical goods and infrastructures exists. Also, in situations of a scarcity of natural resources, both energy and materials, often characterised by rapidly rising resource prices, the economic actors of a circular economy have a high competitive advantage over the actors of the industrial economy, due to much lower procurement costs for materials and energy. From a social point of view, a circular economy increases the number of skilled jobs in regional enterprises. However, the shift from a linear manufacturing economy to a circular or service economy means a change in economic thinking from flow （throughput） management to stock （asset） management： in a manufacturing economy with largely unsaturated markets, total wealth increases through accumulation as resource throughput （flow） is transformed into a higher stock of goods of better quality （but in a manufacturing economy with largely saturated markets, wealth represented by the stock of goods will no longer increase）; in a circular or service economy, total wealth increases through a smart management of existing physical assets （stock） that are adapted to changes in both technology and customer demand. This second approach not only applies to physical capital but equally to social capital, such as health and education and green GDP. To measure the social wealth of a population, it is not the amount of money spent on schools and hospitals that matters, butif this expenditure has led to a better education of the students, and a better health of the people.     

Sustainable Development and Health:Recent International Developments,Policies and Projects

Environment and health have been more and more jointly addressed in recent years,thanks to the efforts of several public and private institutions.In this scenario,a leading role has been played by the World Heath Organisation(WHO).A specific attention was devoted to the issue by the European Union(EU)EU institutions and the WHO Office for Europe,which lists 52 countries(including Europe,Eastern European Countries and Turkey, former Yugoslavia and part of the former Soviet Union).The objectives of the present paper are to give an overview of the main developments in this area,and to underline the progress made towards a common understanding of health and environment issues,the advantages and limits of these developments and the challenges for the future,to be tackled at a global level.     

Sustainable Tourism and the Touristic Ecological Footprint

There is growing interest in ecological footprint analysis in aiding our understanding of societal demands upon the biosphere. Increasingly, attention is being focused on potential new applications of the technique. Tourism is one of the world's largest industries and can play a major part in encouraging more consumerist lifestyles. It is now widely accepted that tourism development may have profound impacts on local environments, and that, consequently, the sustainable development of tourism at destination areas is an important issue. However, sustainable tourism studies rarely look beyond the destination area, and there has been no substantive recognition of the wider ecological footprint of tourism activities. This paper attempts to connect, conceptually, the realms of sustainable tourism and ecological footprint thinking. In so doing, various conceptualisations of the 'touristic ecological footprint' (TEF) are suggested, along with some potential applications. It is argued that primary research should focus on calculating the touristic ecological footprint associated with individual tourism products, throughout the product's life-cycle. As well as bringing another dimension to our understanding of tourism's actual ecological demand, it is also argued that the concept of the touristic ecological footprint may be used to clarify theoretical aspects of the sustainable tourism debate, helping to rejuvenate this debate in the process.     

环境-社会系统管理与可持续发展

提出以环境-社会系统管理推进可持续发展。就是要寓经济发展于生态化中。寓生态建设于经济化中．寓社会发展于生态和经济的协调发展之中．为“经济-社会-环境”系统建立一个健康、安全、和谐的可持续发展模式。     

真实储蓄:中国可持续发展的测量与检验

用真实储蓄进行可持续发展的跨国比较已广为采用,关于真实储蓄指标的有效性检验的研究正在开展.本文汇集两类较具代表性的检验方法,测算世界银行提供的1960至2006年中国真实储蓄率的有效性.研究发现基于相同理论的不同检验方法,得出的结论互相抵触.本文从数据构造与经济计量模型两个方面分析,得出数据构造方法的不同是造成上述现象的重要原因,而中国储蓄检验结果的不理想,则源于检验模型的假设不适于我国的数据.     

Sustainable engineering education in the United States

Sustainable engineering is a conceptual and practical challenge to all engineering disciplines. Although the profession has experience with environmental dimensions of engineering activities that in some cases are quite deep, extending the existing body of practice to sustainable engineering by including social and cultural domains is a significant and non-trivial challenge. Nonetheless, progress is being made, as a recent study undertaken by the Center for Sustainable Engineering in the United States demonstrates.

Production, Consumption and the World Summit on Sustainable Development

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), world leaders agreed that eliminating unsustainable production and consumption is one of the three overriding objectives of sustainable development. Achieving that objective should have been a major priority for the WSSD Plan of Implementation. Increases in consumption and production over the past decade were largely responsible for the worsening environmental and social trends. Unfortunately, the negotiators of the Plan paid insufficient attention to the lessons from 10 years of discussions about the concepts, the available policies and tools and their effectiveness, the impacts of those policies on developing countries, and the political commitment of countries in an era of globalization. Despite a promising proposal for a new ten-year work programme aimed at bridging the gap implementing the Agenda 21 commitments from Rio, Summit negotiators produced barely more than a muted echo of recommendations from the past which have yet to be taken seriously enough by the world's leaders in a comprehensive intergovernmental strategy. In the ten-year review of progress to achieve sustainable production and consumption (SPAC), governments quickly skipped past the critical work of examining why things are getting worse, avoiding the task of identifying the obstacles (which in some cases were themselves) and in turn avoiding the commitment to time-bound measurable targets. If nothing else, the WSSD demonstrated that a global strategy to achieve SPAC will come not from a UN consensus of world leaders but from a strategic alliance of responsible governments, civil society and others with a vision beyond the next election cycle.     

山东可持续发展试验带的经济学分析

在介绍国家和山东省可持续发展实验区建设的基本情况的基础上．论述了山东省构建可持续发展试验带的必要性。利用区位论的基本原理，结合可持续发展实验区建设经验，综合考虑城市间的距离、经济聚集规模及对资源依赖程度等因素，分析了山东省17个市的相互作用潜力．计算出淄博、济南、烟台、青岛、潍坊、威海、泰安、东营、济宁、滨州、临沂等11个城市具有划入山东省可持续发展试验带的潜力．为规划山东的区域可持续发展提供了理论基础。     

City Environment Art and Sustainable Development

The development of everthing follows its own law, which does not change at people’s own sweet will. Therefore, we must study the development of things so as to grasp the essence of things in their deep meanings, explore the direction of their de- velopment, and make them better serve the people. As a part of the thought of sustainable development, city environment art will be of active significance to the perfection of the thought and will also be the concrete embodiment of the synthetic index of economic development. Such a thesis, starting from the macroscopic angle, and relying on the leading thought of sustainable development, takes hold of the development trend of city environment art, and explores the various problems that have arisen in city environment in the process of city management by combining thoughts on city planning, so as to guide urban harmonious development theoretically. The present paper expounds on the views comprehensively and, through the synthetic analysis on city planning, city environment, art esthetics and the thought of sustainable development, makes a detailed analysis of the effects of the present rapid city development on city environment.     

论政府能力与可持续发展

相对于传统发展模式。可持续发展在发展目标与内容上更具有公共性和长期性的取向。从而使政府能力将面临着更大的挑战.“卡尔多-希克斯改进”原则为政府推动可持续发展和走向“帕累托改瞢”提供了思路，并决定了政府能力的核心是制度供给能力。为了充分发挥政府能力。制度安排应遵循市场优先、地方政府优先、公众参与、遵循法治四个原则。     

CAD and DFM: enablers of sustainable product design

Sustainability has been regarded as an important concept for survival in the contemporary scenario. Modern design engineers are in need of approaches for creating sustainable products. In this context, this paper reports a case study carried out in an Indian modular switches manufacturing organisation. The existing handle of the switch has been modelled using computer-aided design (CAD). Then, the sustainability analysis has been carried out for determining the environmental impact. This is followed by the redesign of the handle using design for manufacturability (DFM) principles. The sustainability has been measured in terms of carbon footprint, energy consumption and air–water impacts. It has been found that the redesigned handle possesses minimal environmental impact. It could be inferred from the results of the case study that CAD and DFM could lead to the development of sustainable product design with minimal impact on the environment.     

Sustainable polymer composites: immiscible blends prepared by extrusion of poly(trimethylene terephthalate) and polyamide6,10 with high bio-based content

Components for binary polymer blends were sought to produce an immiscible blend of improved renewable character and with good structural properties. The poly(trimethylene terephthalate) and polyamide6,10 system was selected based on the molecular structure of the molecules and the bio-based origin of the feedstocks. A preliminary study of three compositions in this system demonstrated the similar thermal properties of the two polymers as measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and the ability of these polymers to be processed together in conventional extrusion equipment to produce blends with micrometer-scale domains. Dispersed phases were observed by electron microscopy near the end members. Available viscosity data and the appearance of columnar blends at the 50/50 composition suggest the possibility of co-continuous blends in close proximity to this composition.     

地方政府与中国乡村的可持续发展——以浙江省横店镇可持续发展实验区为个案

在可持续发展过程中。政府、民间组织、企业和个人都有其能够发挥作用的地方．但是。地方政府可以说是实现地方可持续发展之关键。以浙江省东阳市横店镇可持续发展实验区为个案。深入探讨地方政府与地方可持续发展的关系。文章的一个基本结论是，从横店镇可持续发展实验区案例来看．我国乡村的可持续发展应该走政府主导的模式．而只有强化地方政府的能力（包括规划、资源与领导能力等）。方能培育地方良治（good governance）与支持可持续发展。     

可持续发展:制度供求与政府责任

社会范围内可持续发展目标的实现。必须有健全的正式制度与非正式制度供给并配合有强有力的实施机制。然而．由于国家的制度供给功能与地方政府行为异化可能引致经济活动偏离制度目标．非正式制度供给主体的行为异化、经济发展水平及制度成本的非均摊皆可导致制度供给不足并由此引起诸多不可持续现象。本文旨在通过对可持续发展制度供求的理论分析．从可持续发展制度供求的内在要求上。阐述制度供求的非均衡状态对可持续发展的影响。探讨我国在可持续发展战略实施中制度供给不足的原因。明确提出中央政府和地方政府相应的制度供给责任。以改变不可持续发展的现状。     

试论可持续发展的地域公平性

以对“人地关系”、“发展内涵”和“人的位置”等的系统认识为理性基础．所提出来的可持续发展观．非常强调公平性。经典的可持续发展概念对“公平性”的理解，主要是强调时间维度上的代际公平。我们从地理学的研究核心“人地关系地域系统协调共生理论。和区域可持续发展实证研究的理论和实践的双重角度．认为公平性不仅是时间维度上的代际公平．而且是空间维度上的地域公平和群际公平。就地域公平而言．我们认为．它不仅包括相关地域的公平性而且包括次级地域的公平性和背景地域的公平性。地域公平性的这样的理论认识。在指导区域可持续发展的实践中将具有重要意义。