A TOOL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL-DESIGN

As consumers are concerned more about the environmental problems, they become anxious about how products affect the environment. But multipl e factors like greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and acidification ma ke it difficult for a designer to estimate a product's environmental i nfluence at an early design stage. To solve the problem, we have intro duced a tool named DFE (Design For Environment), which enables designe rs to estimate the costs and the environmental influence of products w hen disposed. The social background, criterions for the estimation, an d overview of the DFE as well as current and future development activi ties at Sharp are described.