Leading product-related environmental performance indicators: a selection guide and database

Accepted Manuscript Leading Product-related Environmental Performance Indicators: a selection guide and database Isabela I. Issa, Daniela C.A. Pigosso, Tim C. McAloone, Henrique Rozenfeld PII:

S0959-6526(15)00821-5

DOI:

10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.088

Reference:

JCLP 5747

To appear in:

Journal of Cleaner Production

Received Date: 10 October 2014 Revised Date:

10 April 2015

Accepted Date: 19 June 2015

Please cite this article as: Issa II, Pigosso DCA, McAloone TC, Rozenfeld H, Leading Product-related Environmental Performance Indicators: a selection guide and database, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.088. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Leading Product-related Environmental Performance Indicators: a selection guide and database 1

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Isabela I. Issa , Daniela C. A. Pigosso , Tim C. McAloone , Henrique Rozenfeld Department of Production Engineering, University of São Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark 1

Abstract

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Ecodesign is a proactive environmental management and improvement approach employed in the product development process, which aims to minimize the environmental impacts caused during a product’s life cycle and thus improve its environmental performance. The establishment of measurable environmental performance indicators for the product development process is often cited as a successful factor for effective ecodesign implementation, since it enables setting targets and monitoring achievements towards the accomplishment of environmental ambitions. However, companies still face difficulties in the selection and application of environmental performance indicators - a more structured approach is still lacking. This paper presents the efforts made to identify and systematize existing leading product-related environmental performance indicators, based on a systematic literature review, and to develop a guide to support the selection of these indicators by manufacturing companies. From the review, 261 environmental performance indicators were identified and systematized in a digital database. The database supports the application of the environmental performance indicators guide, which proposes a five-step approach to support the selection of indicators. Based on improvement opportunities identified from a case study for theory-testing in Denmark, an improved version of the guide was developed and subsequently applied in a case study in Brazil. The results from both evaluations indicate that the guide supported the studied companies in the selection of environmental performance indicators in the context of ecodesign implementation. This paper presents the results of the literature review, the systematization of environmental performance indicators and the support guide.

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Keywords: Environmental performance indicators (EPIs), ecodesign management, product development

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1. Introduction In the last decades, sustainable development has inspired organizations to find new ways to measure and improve their environmental performance. Indicators have emerged as an multilevel approach (Veleva et al., 2003) to support managers in measuring the progress, in deciding how to achieve the defined objectives and in implementing corrective actions (Arena et al., 2009). The use of environmental performance indicators (EPIs) to monitor product performance is often identified as one of the successful factors for effective ecodesign implementation, as they can indicate improvement opportunities to prevent environmental damage (Fiksel et al., 1998; Herva et al., 2011). Ecodesign is a proactive environmental management approach towards product design, which aims to improve the environmental performance of products without compromising the performance, functionality, aesthetics, quality and cost (Johansson, 2002; Nielsen and Wenzel, 2002). Product-related EPIs can be employed to measure the environmental performance of individual products or the complete range of products in the portfolio of a company, referring to all environmental aspects of products’ life cycle (Krajnc and Glavic, 2003). Classified as Operational Performance Indicators (OPIs), product-related EPIs are related to operational processes of an organization, such as the supply of materials, energy and services, and the delivery of products, services and wastes (ISO, 2013; Jasch, 2000). The major opportunities for the improvement of environmental performance of products are in the initial phases of product development process (PDP), when most of the decisions and technical specifications are taken (McAloone and Bey, 2009). Despite the common assumption in ecodesign of the need to develop methods which are easy-to-use and can be employed in the early phases of the PDP (Persson, 2001), most methods and tools to measure the

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environmental performance of products, such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), still present high complexity and data requirements (Hur et al., 2005), providing results that can be classified as lagging EPIs. Lagging EPIs measure the product’s impacts on the environment, as a final result of a process. Environmental impact is defined as any change in the environment, which results wholly or partially from an organization’s activities, products or services (ISO, 2004). On the other hand, leading EPIs aim to produce simpler measures of environmental aspects that can inspire effective actions in improving product’s performance. Environmental aspects are defined as elements of organization’s activities, products or services that interact with the environment (ISO, 2004). In this context, the use of leading product-related EPIs can be seen as a simpler and faster quantitative approach for performance measurement and improvement during the PDP (Bovea and Pérez-Belis, 2012). Although there are several studies in literature about EPIs, some factors still hamper their application in companies (Herva et al., 2011; Hur et al., 2005). The main challenges are related to the existence of several sets of indicators, indices and frameworks, which creates confusion in companies during the selection of the ones to be implemented (Joung et al., 2012). Furthermore, there is a lack of a clear and detailed guidance for the implementation of the selected indicators in practice (Veleva and Ellenbecker, 2001). General principles regarding the development, selection and use of product-related EPIs in PDP are not widely discussed, and aspects related to the systematization of EPIs to support ecodesign should be further investigated (Persson, 2001; Thoresen, 1999). This paper presents the results of a research that focused on the identification and systematization of the so-called leading product-related EPIs to measure the environmental performance of products in the early stages of PDP. The research focuses on the environmental dimension of sustainability, as this has been the most widely investigated in terms of approaches, tools and metrics among the other three dimensions (environmental, social and economic) (Arena et al., 2009). This research was developed in the context of the Ecodesign Maturity Model (EcoM2), a framework with an evolutionary approach that aims to support companies in the implementation of ecodesign by diagnosing the maturity profile of the company and establishing a roadmap for ecodesign practices implementation, based on the current maturity profile and strategic objectives and drivers (Pigosso et al., 2013). The methodology employed to develop the research is presented in the next section (Section 2). Section 3 presents the systematization of the identified leading product-related EPIs in a database. Section 4 describes the guide developed to support the selection of EPIs, and section 5 presents results and discussions from the two case studies for theory testing. Discussion, conclusions and acknowledgments are presented in sections 6, 7 and 8, respectively.

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2. Methodology The research followed the hypothetical-deductive approach, a scientific method in which a hypothesis that leads the phenomena of interest is formulated and experimentation is used seeking to refute it (Gill and Johnson, 2002). The hypothesis to be tested in this research is: “The systematization of leading product-related EPIs and a step-by-step guide can support companies in the selection of indicators to monitor the environmental performance of products.” The experimentation was carried out by means of case studies for theory-testing, whose objective was to test the hypothesis and, if necessary, reformulate it (Dul and Hak, 2008). The research comprised four main phases (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Phases of the research

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The first phase of the research comprised the identification of leading product-related EPIs that can be used to measure and monitor the environmental performance of products by means of a systematic literature review (Biolchini et al., 2005). Biolchini et al. (2005) presents an organized and clear way to carry out the systematic review, based on three steps: (1) Planning, when a protocol of the review is developed; (2) Execution, when the studies are identified, evaluated and selected according to inclusion and qualification criteria defined in the protocol; and (3) Analysis, which consists in the extraction and synthesis of the knowledge obtained from the analyzed studies (Biolchini et al, 2005). The string to search at the electronic databases was composed by the union of 25 synonyms of ecodesign (such as “design for environment” and “environmental conscious design”) and 9 synonyms of indicators (such as “metrics” and “measures”). In order to refine the results, the term “product development” was added to the string. Seven indexed electronic databases were used in the search process: IEEExplorer, ISI Web of Knowledge, Science Direct, Emerald, Scopus, Engineering Village and ProQuest. From the search process in the digital databases, more than 1,500 journal papers were identified. During the selection of the relevant papers, the fulfillment of the following three inclusion criteria was required: (1) present the proposition, application or review of product-related EPIs, (2) focus on capital and/or consumer goods and (3) present leading EPIs. Furthermore, as a qualification criterion, only journal papers were selected. In order to evaluate the inclusion criteria in each study, the papers were analyzed by a) reading the title, abstract and keywords; b) reading its introduction and conclusion and c) reading full paper. The evaluation was performed in two phases. In the first phase the Inclusion Criterion 1 was applied, resulting in the selection of 258 papers. In the second phase, the Inclusion Criterion 2 and 3 were applied in these pre-selected set of papers, and the final evaluation resulted in 82 papers selected, in which 261 different leading product-related EPIs were identified. The full list of references included in literature review can be found in Issa (2013). The second phase of the research comprised the systematization of the leading product-related EPIs identified in the literature review according to a set of defined selection criteria. These criteria were defined aiming to facilitate the search and selection of EPIs in the database according to companies’ needs and environmental objectives. The selected criteria were: 1) Life cycle stages: pre-manufacturing; manufacturing and design; distribution and packaging; use and maintenance; end-of-life; and general activities, which involve activities that transcend all product life cycle stages and can influence all of them, such as transportation (adapted from the Product DfE Matrix (Yarwood and Eagan, 1998) and UNEP, 2007); 2) Environmental aspects: material; energy; solid waste; waste water; gaseous emissions; and energy loss (adapted from the Product DfE Matrix (Yarwood and Eagan, 1998)) 3) Type of measure: absolute or relative measures. The life cycle stages and environmental aspects were mainly based and adapted from the Product DfE Matrix (Yarwood and Eagan, 1998), as it has a complete view of product life cycle system. Considering a system view of the product life cycle can support companies to define the boundaries of their potential influence on environmental aspects (Thoresen, 1999). Most of

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the life cycle assessment (LCA) and ecodesign techniques and tools consider these criteria, which are fundamental when considering environmental issues. Many authors such as Kroll and Carver (1999), Jasch (2000), Azapagic and Perdan (2000), Persson (2001), Krajnc and Glavic (2003) and Cerdan et al. (2009) discuss the use of absolute and relative measures, as the type of measure deals with the usability of indicators and the goal of the company when measuring environmental performance. The identification and systematization of EPIs provided a digital database of indicators, as presented in section 3. Phase 3 comprised the development of a guide to support the selection of leading productrelated EPIs to measure the environmental performance of products. The guide was developed based on conceptualization and validation sessions with ecodesign experts, which resulted in a step-by-step approach. The approach follows logical and traditional flows for selection and use of performance indicators in performance measurement systems (PMS), considering references such as Neely et al. (2000). The validation of the guide consisted of individual semi-structured interviews about the proposed step-by-step procedure with three ecodesign experts, selected based on their extensive empirical and theoretical experience on ecodesign implementation and management in manufacturing companies. The results are presented in section 4. The last phase of the research consisted in an initial evaluation of the EPI guide and database by means of two case studies for theory-testing (Dul and Hak, 2008). In order to qualify for the case study, the companies should: (1) develop capital and/or consumer goods; and (2) currently be aiming to develop products with improved environmental performance. The guide was improved based on the results of the first case study, and subsequently tested in a second case study. Both case studies were conducted with a workshop and an evaluation questionnaire answered by the employees that applied the guide. The workshop comprised the application of the steps proposed in the guide, having the researchers as observers. The evaluation questionnaire was the main tool used for the hypothesis evaluation. The object of measurement was defined as satisfaction, i.e. how the guide is perceived as successful by the company. This type of success refers to a value attributed by the company, where the variable can range from “Unsatisfactory” to “Very satisfactory” (Dul and Hak, 2008).The evaluation questionnaire was composed by direct and open questions, which aimed to measure: the usefulness and usability of the guide; the usefulness and completeness of the classification criteria; the content of product-related EPIs database; and the time-efficiency, when using the guide to select EPIs. It is important to note that these two experiences with companies are not enough to validate the EPI guide, they are just initial evaluations, and for validation it is necessary more experimentation. The results are presented in section 5.

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3. Product-related EPIs database: results and layout This section presents the results of phases 1 and 2 of the research. Approximately 500 indicators were identified in the systematic literature review. The indicators were consolidated in order to eliminate similarities and overlaps, resulting in the systematization of 261 leading product-related EPIs. The following information were documented for each indicator: name, symbol, formula, unit of measurement, bibliographic reference and its recurrence in the literature (number of papers in which the EPI appeared) (Issa et al., 2013). The EPIs were subsequently classified according to three classification criteria: life cycle phase; environmental aspects; and type of measure, as presented in Section 2 (methodology). For each life cycle stage, a set of environmental objectives to be considered in PDP are defined, linking the set of EPIs to the ecodesign operational practices from EcoM2. The EcoM2 contains a set of ecodesign operational practices, which address technical issues in product development, providing guidelines and design options for the development of products with an improved environmental performance (Pigosso, 2012). The maturity model comprises 468 operational practices identified as a result of a systematic literature review (Pigosso et al., 2013). The correlation among life cycle stages and ecodesign operational practices are presented in Table 1. Table 1: Life cycle stages and related environmental objectives Premanufacturing

Manufacturing and Design

Distribution and Packaging

Use and Maintenance

End-of-Life

General Activities

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Minimize scrap and discards

Minimize or avoid packaging

Intensify use

Adopt the cascade approach

Laws and regulations

Minimize material content

Engage more consumption-efficient systems

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Optimize product functionality

Select materials with the most efficient recycling technologies

Minimize energy consumption during transportation and storage

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Design for reliability

Identify materials

Provide information to users and treatment facilities

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Design for appropriate lifespan

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Facilitate upgrading and adaptability Increase the durability of the product

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Select renewable and bio-compatible energy resources

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Engage systems of flexible materials consumption Minimize materials consumption during usage Select systems with energy-efficient operation and use stage Engage dynamic consumption of energy Facilitate maintenance

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Facilitate Remanufacturing

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Design for reliability (related to assembly operations)

Minimize the overall number of different incompatible materials Facilitate end-of-life collection and transportation Provide collection and processing of the product at its end of life

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Select renewable and bio-compatible materials

select non-toxic and harmless resources

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Facilitate reuse

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Facilitate Cleaning

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Facilitate disassembly

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Facilitate repairs

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Select non-toxic and harmless energy resources

Minimize materials consumption during the product development phase Minimize energy consumption during pre-production and production Minimize energy consumption during product development

Minimize material consumption

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The classes of environmental aspects are also adapted from Yarwood and Eagan (1998), which proposes and listed as: material; energy; solid waste; waste water; gaseous emissions; and energy loss. The environmental aspects are divided into subclasses, as presented in Table 2. The subclasses are developed based on the identified EPIs, considering the specific product’s aspect they were measuring, and validated based on an expert review. The addition of new EPIs might require the development of additional subclasses. Table 2: Environmental aspects and their subclasses Energy

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Material Material type • Biodegradable materials • Recyclable materials • Recycled materials • Renewable materials • Hazardous materials

Solid waste

Gaseous emissions

Waste water

Energy loss

Energy source • Renewable energy

Source of waste • By-products • Defective products

Waste water amount

Gaseous emissions amount

Radiation

Material consumption

Energy consumption

Solid waste amount

Water pollutants

Air pollutants

Noise

Auxiliary materials

Co-generation of energy

Hazardous waste

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Heat

Water • Water use • Source of water • Reused water

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Vibration

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Additionally, EPIs are classified according to the measurement type. Absolute indicators measure total amounts from an input-output analysis of processes or in terms of time estimation; and relative indicators: are expressed in relation to one unit of product or production output manufactured, a baseline product, or an ideal condition in a design option.

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Some examples of EPIs and their classification are presented in Table 3. The complete database of systematized leading product-related EPIs is available for download on the web, on the following webpage: http://www.ecodesign.dtu.dk/KPIs . Table 3: Examples of EPIs and their classification

Number of hazardous materials

Life cycle stage

Environmental aspect

Type of measure

Pre-manufacturing

Material

Absolute

Manufacturing and Design; and general activities

Reusable parts

End-of-life

Packaging mass fraction Polluted liquid waste volume

Distribution and packaging Manufacturing and design

Energy

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Total energy consumption

Reference

ZHANG et al (2004)

KRAJNC and GLAVIC (2003), VELEVA et al (2003), DESPEISSE et al (2012), JASCH (2000), AZAPAGIC (2003), CHOI et al (1997), ZHAO et al (2012)

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Solid waste

Relative

CERDAN et al (2009), KOCH and KEOLEIAN (1995), SINGH et al (2007)

Material

Relative

KRAJNC and GLAVIC ( 2003), MINTCHEVA (2005)

Waste water

Absolute

KRAJNC and GLAVIC ( 2003)

Material

Absolute

Manufacturing and design; and general activities

Energy; and gaseous emissions

Absolute

AZAPAGIC (2003)

Use and maintenance

Material; and energy

Relative

PERSSON (2001)

Total air emissions

Manufacturing and design

Gaseous emissions

Absolute

JASCH (2000)

Rate of defective products

Manufacturing and design

Solid waste

Relative

JASCH (2000)

Number of components

Use and maintenance; and end-of-life

Solid waste

Absolute

AOE (2007), ZWOLINSKI et al (2006)

Product Density

Pre-manufacturing; and general activities

Material; and energy

Relative

BOCKEN et al (2011), KOBAYASHI (2006)

Useful lifetime

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Product degree of utilization

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Fossil fuel consumption in transportation

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Use and maintenance

JASCH (2000), KOBAYASHI (2006), KUMAZAWA et al (2006), KRAJNC and GLAVIC (2003), AZAPAGIC and PERDAN (2000), BOCKEN et al (2011), AOE (2007), REN (2000), FIKSEL (2003)

An analysis of the leading product-related EPIs classified in the database based on the three selection criteria shows that: • Life cycle stages: 36.4% of the 261 EPIs in the database are related to end-of-life, followed by manufacturing and design (25.3%) and pre-manufacturing (23.4%);

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Environmental aspects: most of EPIs are linked to material (42.5%), followed by solid waste (34.1%) and energy (20.3%); • Type of measure: 51.3% absolute measures and 50.2% relative ones, indicating that EPIs are being used in both formats. In this sense, it can be observed that there is a tendency in developing indicators to measure products’ end-of-life performance and material consumed and discarded in processes. Arena et al. (2009) affirms that the most of tools for environmental sustainability deals with resource consumption, in terms of material and energy. The analysis according to the type of measure has shown to be very balanced, presenting depending on companies’ priorities (ISSA et al, 2013). In addition to the systematization of leading product-related EPIs, the database has been developed to support the users to select the most relevant EPIs, providing an overview and analysis of selected EPIs according to life cycle stages and environmental aspects; and a blank worksheet where the user can insert the full set of selected, created an/or customized indicators.

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4. Guide to support the selection of leading product-related EPIs This section presents the guide developed in this research to support the selection of leading product-related EPIs by manufacturing companies. The guide presented in this paper corresponds to its final version (available at http://www.ecodesign.dtu.dk/KPIs). The guide presents a five-step approach (Fig. 2) and is intended to support managers and product developers involved in ecodesign implementation in the identification of leading product-related EPIs to track and monitor products’ environmental performance during the product development process. The guide is composed by a descriptive text and the productrelated EPIs database (see section 3).

Fig. 2: Step-by-step approach to select product-related EPIs

Step 1: Define environmental priorities and objectives

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The first step consists of a definition of environmental priorities and objectives to improve a products’ environmental performance. This is not an easy task, as it involves high level prioritization and decisions, as well as previous knowledge about the product and the ambitions of the company related to environmental improvement of the product. In order to be performed properly, this step requires the previous definition of improvement focus areas for the product, which should include aspects and/or life cycle stages to be focused on, in order to improve its environmental performance. If the company already has environmental strategic priorities and goals considering products’ life cycle, the objectives for product development should just translate these goals in productoriented actions and practices. For example, if one of the company’s strategic objectives is to reduce energy consumption and the use of toxic substances, the environmental objectives for PDP would be to develop products energy-efficient and to find non-harmless materials. If not, some tools of environmental performance evaluation and market requirements and expectations can provide guidelines to establish these priorities. The tools for environmental performance evaluation, such as the DfE Matrix (Yarwood and Eagan, 1998) and the Green Design Advisor (Feldmann et al., 1999), can provide hints on the main life cycle phases and environmental aspects which can cause environmental damages and which can be improved. Also, the market can determine which products’ environmental characteristics are receiving more attention in media and in costs estimation. Once the company identifies the environmental areas to be focused on, the consideration needs to be made, regarding what can be improved in the product’s life cycle (processes, functions, stakeholders…), from which a list of environmental objectives for PDP should be defined, such as “Minimizing material consumption” and “Facilitating remanufacturing”, for instance.

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Step 2: Pre-select EPIs The set of environmental objectives, defined in step 1, is the main input for this step and very important in the pre-selection of EPIs, as they will guide the selection of the most suitable indicators. For each objective, the company can relate at least one life cycle stage and one environmental aspect, and also choose one type of measure. Step 2 consists of the use of the classification criteria (life cycle stages, environmental aspects and type of measure – see section 3) as filters in the digital database to obtain subsets of EPIs. For example, if an objective is to “reduce energy consumption during use”, the list of EPIs in the database can be filtered by applying “use and maintenance” as life cycle stage and “energy” as environmental aspect, resulting in a subset of EPIs. The pre-selection can be repeated according to each environmental objective previously defined. For each new subset, step 3 should be applied and a set of EPIs will be selected.

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Step 3: Select EPIs from the database Step 3 comprises the selection of EPIs from the subsets obtained in the previous step. The selection is based on a set of practical criteria when applying and measuring the indicators, such as the type of product, the time efficiency when measuring the EPI and data availability within the company, for instance. The main challenge of this step is to select applicable and suitable EPIs for the products and the company. The company needs to evaluate each indicator in the subsets of the database by answering questions such as: •

Is this indicator suitable to the products?

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How much data is required to measure this indicator?

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Does the data gathering of this indicator involve significant costs?

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Is this indicator easy-to-use and understand?

• Does the use of this indicator require experts? Step 2 and 3 are iterative steps, which means that the user can apply filters in the database as many times as necessary and select EPIs from the different subsets. At the end of this step, it is expected to have a set of selected EPIs from all subsets in the database, according to the environmental objectives and the usability of each indicator. It is recommendable to use a manageable number of indicators, normally between ten and twenty (Veleva and Ellenbecker, 2001), assuring then that the company have just relevant, few and simple EPIs linked to its environmental objectives. Additionally, there can be some trade-offs between the selected EPIs,

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT and it is necessary to check whether this happens (Byggeth and Hochschorner, 2006) and take the appropriate actions.

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Step 4: Customize and create new EPIs Once a set of EPIs from the database is selected, it may be necessary to customize some of the EPIs to the specific needs of the company and the developed products. Step 4 consists of the customization and in the identification of missing EPIs to measure the product performance. The customization focuses on the adequacy of EPIs to the operational activities conducted during the life cycle of specific products. EPIs can be customized or adapted according to the industrial sector and context of the company, considering the nature and particularities of these products, such as the type of raw materials income, the energy resource and the use phase. To measure the EPI “Specific Air Emissions per Substance” (Azapagic, 2003; Jasch, 2000), for example, it is important to define which substances in products’ manufacturing are relevant to their environmental performance. Furthermore, it may be necessary to create new EPIs in order to fulfill specific needs of the company, not covered in the database. The database supports the identification of missing indicators by providing an overview and an analysis of the set of selected EPIs according to life cycle stages and environmental aspects. The classification criteria presented in this paper can guide the development of some new leading EPIs, assuming that the company can create an EPI selecting at least one life cycle stage, one environmental aspect and one type of measure. As a simple example, if a company which produces soap identifies that some environmental objective is not being measured, such as “Reduce waste water generation during use”, the EPI “Amount of waste water generation during use” can be developed.

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Step 5: Implement the leading product-related EPIs Step 5 consists of planning and implementing the set of EPIs consolidated in step 4 within the company. The implementation plan includes the development of environmental performance evaluation using EPIs in PDP, as a formal process in the company. The main phases of the implementation are: the plan stage; data collecting and measuring of EPIs; checking the performance results; and define actions to improve product performance over time. In this step, it is important to define the responsibilities for data collection and measurement of the indicators, the period of tracking, the responsible to achieve improvement goals, and how the results of the measurement will be communicated inside and outside the company. It is also important to verify for which kind of product (or family of products) the set of EPIs is being used, and if the company needs different sets for different products. Lastly, it is fundamental to define when it is necessary to start a new selection process, by evaluating the used set during a period of time, and then ensuring that the EPIs selected can really translate the main environmental objectives of the company.

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5. Case studies for theory testing The developed guide and database were applied in two case studies for theory-testing. This section presents the results and discussion of the case studies, which were carried out in order to evaluate whether the guide could support companies in the selection of EPIs. 5.1 Company 1 Company 1 is an European multinational company that has been working with ecodesign over the past 20 years. The company is currently implementing the ecodesign projects suggested by the Ecodesign Maturity Model (EcoM2) (Pigosso et al., 2013), after a diagnosis of its current maturity profile. Furthermore, the company has demonstrated previous knowledge on the environmental impacts of its products (through an LCA study), and also presented objectives previously defined to improve and measure their environmental performance. In Company 1, the guide was used by the environmental managers responsible to integrate ecodesign into product development and to monitor products’ environmental performance. The company was looking for EPIs to compose an ecodesign tool which should focus on the product sustainability as a whole. The case was carried out in the Danish headquarters of Company 1

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and three meetings were conducted with the participating employees, over three consecutive days. As the company already had defined environmental objectives, step 1 was not performed during these meetings. The application of the guide led the participants in Company 1 through steps 2, 3 and 4. The database was used when applying the classification criteria as filters according to the environmental objectives already defined, to find subsets of EPIs. The participants applied these filters for each environmental objective already defined, choosing at least one life cycle stage and one environmental aspect. Company 1 preferred to focus on relative measures. The customization and creation of new EPIs were performed, and the final set of selected EPIs comprised 27 indicators. From this set, 9 EPIs were selected to be used exactly how they were presented in the database, 12 were adapted and/or customized, and 6 new EPIs were created. The implementation of EPIs (step 5) was not accomplished during the workshop, as this is a longer process that lay outside the scope of this project, plus the full set of identified EPIs should first be validated and approved by different managers of the company before being implemented. As Company 1 already had previous knowledge on ecodesign, the application of the guide flowed smoothly, and the users could comprehend what should be done in each step of the guide. Having the environmental objectives defined, the most time-intensive activity was to navigate in the database and understand the EPIs and how they should be measured. The users showed and expressed difficulty in understanding some specific EPIs with more complex formulae, the interdependency between them, and also the classification of some EPIs. The main discussions when selecting EPIs in step 3 of the guide were about data gathering, i.e., on how the necessary information to measure an indicator would be gathered within the organization. An evaluation questionnaire was applied to one of the participants in Company 1, just after the EPIs selection, which scored most of the evaluation criteria as being satisfactory (usefulness and usability of the guide, usefulness and completeness of the classification criteria, the content of the product-related EPIs database, and time-efficiency when using the guide to select EPIs). None of the evaluation criteria were evaluated as “needs improvement” or “unsatisfactory” (Fig. 3). Company 1 considered the guide as having a “logical approach”, “easy to understand” and with “good visualization”, and also a “good inspiration for different indicators”. Some limitations can be traced from this first case study. Firstly, the success during the selection of EPIs by Company 1 can be partly attributed to the fact that there were environmental objectives for product development already defined. Furthermore, the presented case study did not cover the application of step 5, meaning that there were no results regarding how the selected EPIs were implemented within the company.

Fig. 3: Evaluation of the developed guide by Company 1 (n=1)

This first application of the guide in Company 1 was positive and provided suggestions for improvement, such as the review of the systematization of EPIs, and what could be improved to make the steps clearer and more concise. From the experience of the company in defining

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT environmental objectives and their importance during EPIs selection, it was concluded that the relevance of each selected indicator depends on how it is linked to its environmental priorities and objectives, and that the selection process depends on the definition of these goals. From this first application of the guide some improvements were performed, mainly linked to the structure of the steps in the guide, the systematization of EPIs, the explanation of some EPIs, and the layout, presentation and functionalities of the database (Issa, 2013).

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5.2 Company 2 Company 2 is a North American multinational company that is interested in applying ecodesign as a competitive and innovative approach. Currently, the company is performing a diagnosis of its maturity profile on ecodesign implementation and management based on the EcoM2 (Pigosso et al., 2013). Their products are part of a competitive market, in which efficiency and reduced costs are fundamental requirements. The company has an environmental management system (EMS) focused on the manufacturing processes, but not including the product development process through an evaluation of environmental performance throughout all products’ life cycle. The guide was applied in Company’s 2 South American division in, Brazil. The EPI selection process was carried out through two meetings, conducted in one day, with five multifunctional participants (engineering director, product developers, project manager and the quality and environmental systems supervisor). During the application of the guide, Company 2 faced difficulties in the definition of environmental priorities and objectives (step 1). In the first instance, the participants decided to apply directly step 2, taking a look in all classification criteria and their subclasses in the database. In this attempt, Company 2 selected 50 EPIs and then decided that this was a high number and that they should go back to step 1 and define at least one environmental objective. As energy consumption is an important environmental aspect for Company 2’s products (as this was a market requirement) the participants focused on this aspect, mainly in the premanufacturing, manufacturing and use phases. Having defined this environmental objective, the users performed steps 2, 3 and 4. In this new attempt, 6 EPIs were selected from the database. When performing the customization, 2 EPIs were adapted to relative measures, 1 was customized and 1 was excluded from the set, resulting in a final set of 5 EPIs. In Company 2, step 5 was also not performed, as the full set of EPIs should then be reviewed according to others environmental objectives and validated by different supervisors and the top management. Company 2 evaluated most of the evaluation criteria as “Satisfactory” or “Very satisfactory”. None of the criteria obtained “Unsatisfactory” answers (Fig. 4). Company 2 considered the database as a contribution to the definition of new indicators and the customization of the existing ones.

Fig. 4: Evaluation of the developed guide by Company 2 (n=5)

5.3. Final remarks about the case studies

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The initial evaluation of the guide in both case studies presented positive results, indicating that the guide can support companies in the selection of leading product-related EPIs. An important difference between the case studies was the performance of step 1, when environmental objectives and priorities for product development should be defined. Company 1 had ready-defined environmental objectives for product development previous to the application of the guide. On the other hand, Company 2 found several difficulties when trying to apply step 1. This difficulty can be attributed to the maturity level on ecodesign of each company, as Company 1 had been working with ecodesign longer than Company 2, which was in the initial phases of ecodesign application. While this step was fundamental for the successful selection of EPIs in Company 1, it acted as a motivation for Company 2 when evaluating product performance and establishing environmental objectives for the PDP. Another important discussion relates to the application of step 3, during the selection of EPIs from the database. For both companies, the main criterion to select EPIs was data gathering, and how the necessary information could be obtained within the companies. The main barrier found in step 3 is that companies normally do not have environmental information already organized, and sometimes they do not have even instruments or standard procedures to measure energy use and amount of hazardous substances, for instance. It means that there is a problem of internal communication of environmental aspects, which should permeate all company’s areas involved in marketing, design and environment. In this respect, as the team which applied the guide in Company 2 was composed by supervisors of different areas, this step was easily applied. Regarding the improvements for the guide performed after the first case study, the new systematization became more structured and Company 2 expressed satisfaction with the new configuration of classification criteria. The database proved to be more user-friendly and easy to navigate and the analysis of selected EPIs regarding the criteria “life cycle stages” and “environmental aspects” supported steps 3 and 4. These results show the evidence that a good selection process for EPIs depends on the definition of objectives for these indicators, as presented in the literature as a good practice on performance measurement. Additionally, it could be concluded that the relevance of an EPI on measuring and monitoring products’ environmental performance depends on the clear relation between an environmental objective and its EPI. However, as the implementation of EPIs following the proposed approach on step 5 of the guide was not accomplished during the presented case studies, this new hypothesis should be tested in future deeper case studies to further evaluate and validate the EPI guide. Additional case-studies for theory-testing must be carried to further validation in different contexts.

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6. Discussion This section aims to discuss the results obtained in this work in comparison to similar research and to describe the main contribution of this research. Azapagic (2003), Joung et al. (2012), Krajnc and Glavic (2003), Mintcheva (2005), Ren (2000), Singh et al. (2007) and Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001) present remarkable approaches regarding the use of environmental and sustainable indicators within manufacturing companies. Table 4 presents a comparative analysis of the cited works based on a set of comparison criteria (sustainability dimensions, product life cycle, examples, database, categorization of indicators, focus, implementation procedure and application in industry). Table 4: Comparison of the developed research with similar works regarding environmental indicators

Reference

Considers all dimensions of sustainability

Present research Azapagic (2003)

✓

Joung et al. (2012)

✓

Considers product's life cycle

Provides examples or propose indicators

Provides a database, based on literature review

Presents a reasonable categorization for indicators

Focuses on product development

Has a practical implementation procedure

Presents development or application in industry

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

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✓

✓

✓

✓

Mintcheva (2005)

✓

✓

✓

Ren (2000)

✓

✓

Singh et al. (2007) Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001)

✓

✓

✓ ✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓ ✓

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As it can be observed in Table 4, most of the approaches consider product’s life cycle and present a categorization and a procedure to implement the indicators in industry. Furthermore, most of these procedures follow a step-by-step approach similar to the proposed EPIs guide, starting with setting context, supporting companies to improve the environmental performance of the products environmental objectives. However, most of the analyzed methodologies do not focus on product development, which defines most of the environmental impacts of a product across its entire life cycle. Furthermore, besides the EPI database, just one initiative created a repository of indicators (Joung et al., 2012), which is not adaptable for users, enhancing the motivation and novelty of this research. In this sense, the results of this research contributes to the enhancement of knowledge on leading product-related EPIs to be employed in the ecodesign in the early phases of development, where the large improvement opportunities are. The academic contribution to increased knowledge on leading product-related EPIs is related to the main results obtained in this research: systematic identification of the existing leading product-related EPIs; systematization of the identified EPIs according to relevant classification criteria for PDP; creation of a digital database of the existing leading product-related EPIs and their related information (name, formula, references…), and finally the proposition and initial evaluation of a procedure to select EPIs using the developed database The specific contributions for companies, in an applied perspective, are related to: support for the selection and customization of product-related EPIs, in a practical procedure using an userfriendly database; provision of a tool to perform the analysis of EPIs selected according to life cycle stages, environmental aspects, and types of measure; and establishment of the perception of companies on environmental impacts and performance of their products. Last, but not least, the proposed approach also enables a benchmarking of leading product-related EPIs based on the state of the art and in the content of the database.

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7. Conclusion This paper presented the efforts carried to identify, systematize and support the selection of leading product-related EPIs by manufacturing companies. In total, 261 leading product-related EPIs were systematized in a digital database that supports the application of a step-by-step guide to support companies in the selection of EPIs. In order to test the hypothesis advocated in this research, two case studies for theory testing were performed, presenting satisfactory results. The main findings from the case studies are: 1) the definition of environmental priorities and objectives appears as a key activity to a successful selection of performance indicators; 2) the involvement of people from different areas in a company in the selection process of EPIs seems to facilitate the selection process; and 3) the systematization of EPIs according to life cycle stages and environmental aspects have increased the view and perception of companies on environmental impacts and performance of their products. Future research should focus on fulfilling the main gaps and limitations of this research. Future research topics can be clustered in three main development areas: improvement and update of the EPIs database, further improvement of the developed guide and expansion of the scope of the research. The main future research topics related to the improvement and update of the EPIs database are: further evaluation of the database in new case studies for theory-testing; analysis of similarities, relationships and overlapping among the identified EPIs; identification of the most common variables and units of measurement; and development of sector-specific databases of EPIs. The further improvement of the guide are related to its further evaluation in multiple case studies for theory-testing, embracing the implementation phase of the selected

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT EPIs and the evaluation of the trade-offs between selected EPIs and other design requirements and sustainability dimensions by the use of multi-design criteria techniques. Finally, future initiatives related to the expansion of the scope of the research will focus on the establishment of correlations between the identified EPIs with the environmental indicators used in popular environmental reports, such as Global Reporting Initiative (GRI, 2006); and on improving understanding on how leading and lagging EPIs can be used together in a comprehensive corporate environmental performance evaluation.

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Finally, it is important to address that the developed research do not comprise the economic and social sustainability dimensions; thus, it becomes necessary to verify if when improving environmental performance there is not a sustainability sub-optimization. As seen, this research field is becoming more interesting even for research and for application in companies, opening several possibilities for works towards more environmentally friend products.

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ACNOWLEDGMENTS We extend our sincere thanks to FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) for supporting this research project, to the two companies for validating the results, to the reviewers for the extremely relevant suggestions, and to the University of São Paulo and the Technical University of Denmark for all the institutional support.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Highlights • • •

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Environmental performance indicators (EPIs): successful factor for ecodesign Companies still face difficulties in the selection and implementation of EPIs Database with 261 leading EPIs, based on a systematic literature review Five-step approach to support the selection of EPIs in manufacturing companies