Reduction of Environmental Impacts through Product Planning and Design

Creating environmentally conscious products (ECPs) is started from product planning with various methods. We structure the design process of ECPs and promote 3R, energy-saving, and environmental impact substances reduction of products.

Environmental Design Review

New product is confirmed with various points of view by Design Review, and regarding environmental items it is confirmed by Environmental Design Review from product planning stage.

The confirming items at Environmental Design Review are "Compliance with Environmental laws and regulations", "Environmental Assessment for Products", "Confirmation of Environmental Labels", "LCA Implementation and Factor Calculation", and "Confirmation of Environmental Design Guideline" etc. On the "Environmental Assessment for Products", new product is evaluated at points of view in Environmental Action Plan conformity, 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) promotion, energy saving, environmental impact substances reduction, and ECP Standards conformity. The Environmental Design Review is conducted at each stage of product planning, functional trial production, trial production, and pre-production. For instance, on the Environmental Design Review at product planning stage, basic environmental design specifications are reviewed, and concrete policy of compliance with environmental laws and regulations and various environmental labels are determined. In addition on the Environmental Design Review at the design stage or later, progress situation against eco-targets is confirmed. Eco-targets of new products are determined with guessed highest environmental specifications at the product release timing, based on technological trends and competitors products.

Eco-efficiency and "Factor T"

Since fiscal 2004, Toshiba Tec introduced concept of "eco-efficiency", in which the value of a product and the environmental impact are related, and Toshiba Tec has been implementing "Factor T" which is method of comparing the eco-efficiency of target product against base product. The eco-efficiency is calculated by dividing the "value" of a product by "environmental impact" of the product. Making lower the environmental impact or making higher the value of a product are increasing the eco-efficiency higher.

Definition of "Eco-efficiency"

Eco-efficiency = Value of a product / Environmental impact of a product

Definition of "Factor T"

Factor = Eco-efficiency of a product subject to assessment / Eco-efficiency of the benchmark product = Value factor x (1/Environmental impact factor)

The value of a product is calculated using method of QFD*1 based on usability and customer satisfaction toward Toshiba Tec products.

The environmental impact of a product is calculated using method of LCA*2 by integrating various environmental impacts throughout life cycle of the product.

For integrating environmental impacts, Toshiba Tec is using LIME*3, which was developed by "the Research Center for Life Cycle Assessment of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology or AIST" in collaboration with "the Japanese government's LCA project".

The Factor T is comparison with the eco-efficiency of target product against the eco-efficiency of base product. And the higher the eco-efficiency of the target product, the larger the Factor T becomes.

Factor of value is comparison with value of target product against value of base product, and "1/Factor of environmental impact" is comparison with environmental impact of target product against environmental impact of base product.

  1. *1.QFD (Quality Function Deployment)
  2. *2.LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)
  3. *3.LIME (Life-cycle Impact assessment Method based on Endpoint modeling)

Get Adobe Reader

Document files are in PDF format. If Adobe® Reader® is not installed on your computer, use this link to download the software. (It will appear in a new window.)