Green innovation

Green innovative design

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Papanek [1] advocated sustainable design to protect the environment. Kurk and Eagan [2] also applied
the power of industrial design to propose green products for people in third-world countries, trying
to improve the lives of those who live at the lowest end of the pyramid of consumption using the
methods of green design. In 2007, the National Design Museum in New York held an exhibition called
“Design for the Other 90%”. This mainly showed how product design can help solve problems such as
education, energy, water, health, sanitation, housing, and transportation. It also demonstrated many
outstanding green design works, and the results were significant, as they attracted more interested to
design in relation to social issues. Green design is an approach which can reduce the environmental
impact of products to facilitate the sustainable development of the society. In the years since, how the
power of green design can be used to reduce the impact of products on the environment has become
an ever more important issue for the sustainable survival of mankind.
With the increase of environmental awareness and the establishment of environmental protection
laws, green product design not only plays a critical role in the manufacturing industry, but has also
become a main focal point in the future [3,4]. Consumers’ requirements are no longer met only by
functional and industrial design, as they now also consider whether products conform to environmental
principles and regulations. In addition, the implementation and promotion of environmental laws
has made green product design a necessary practice for industries in many countries [5]. Therefore,
it is necessary for product designers to take into account environmental impacts and green factors
in the initial stages of the product design lifecycle. This can help ensure that products comply with
environmental principles, facilitate subsequent product maintenance and disassembly, and improve
product reuse, recycling, and regeneration.
Sustainability 2020, 12, 3351; doi:10.3390/su12083351 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
Sustainability 2020, 12, 3351 2 of 23
The design method plays an important role in the process of designing and developing products,
and is a key tool in determining whether an item can successfully become a green product or not. In
general, design methods are related to the way designers work, and can be interpreted as a mechanism
for applying systematic concepts to innovative design [6], built up by insighting, ideating, prototyping,
and evaluating processes to find the best ideas for the final design resolutions [7]. Design methods can
be vital tools that can provide designers with specific guidance and steps to create new possibilities,
and to provide new options and new solutions for products [8]. Some authors [9,10] have also focused
on creating green design methods to assist designers in green product design and development.
The extension method [11] can provide an innovative green design method by decomposing and
recomposing a system or product. It has rigorous deconstruction methods and logic, which can help
product designers construct innovative green concepts in the early stages of product design. This
paper thus aims at proposing an innovative green design method based on the extension method and
Green DNAs. An effective and feasible design approach is therefore provided to designers for creating
practical green products.
The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents a literature review of the main definitions
and classifications of green products and related works, whereas Section 3 proposes a new green design
method and the concept of Green DNAs, which represent detailed design processes for designers to
follow when developing green products. In Section 4, the practical design of a medical air purifier is
demonstrated to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach with regard to
sustainability, while in Section 5, the results and discussions of the prototype of the green product
created by the proposed green design method are provided. Finally, Section 6 reports the conclusions.

2. Related Works of Green Product Design
   Today, becoming “green” is both a trend and an opportunity for companies. There are many reasons
   for this, such as competitiveness, the related laws, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) [12,13].
   Many companies are thus trying to incorporate the factors of environmental sustainability into their
   product design [14]. In this atmosphere, the design and development of green products has become
   more and more important, and this is reflected in both practice and the literature [15,16]. In particular,
   green product design is attracting more interest as a means to enhance company performance and
   competitiveness [17]. However, there is still much debate about the definition of green products [18],
   and many uncertainties about which green factors companies should consider when developing
   such products.
   2.1. Definitions and Classifications of Green Products
   In terms of sustainability, multiple meanings of the word “green” have been explained and
   discussed in the literature [19,20]. In particular, McDonagh and Prothero [20] define several
   dimensions of “green”, embracing economics, society, industry, ecology, profit, consumer, trade,
   equality, and sustainability. These concepts are very wide and involve many levels, but these “green”
   meanings have also caused confusion for many firms and cannot provide a clear guidance for
   those wanting to become greener, and there are many descriptions that aim to identify what green
   products are [21]. Moreover, there are still concerns about the green factors that construct eco-friendly
   products [22]. With regard to the various characteristics and definitions of green products, the European
   Commission [23] defines them as those that use less energy and resources, have lower environmental
   impacts and risks, and prevent waste generation during the early product design phase. This definition
   emphasizes the importance of designing products as “green” from the initial conceptualization phase
   on, and that even here they have “green” attributes. Overall, this is the best definition of green
   product design.
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   2.2. Green DNAs
   Some researchers [24–26] have attempted to further define “green products”. Ottman et al. [27]
   addresses the main aspects of green product development to reduce the environmental impact of such
   activities, including in terms of energy, material, waste, and pollution. Shrivastava [28] states that
   the limits of the natural environment will drive existing products towards becoming green products
   with better energy efficiency and less material usage. Kaebernick and Soriano [29] adopt a simple
   method to evaluate the green products and classify them based on their environmental characteristics.
   They use two factors of energy and material to measure the environmental impact of products in
   the four stages of their life cycles, namely material, manufacture, use, and disposal. Dewberry and
   Goggin [30] propose an Ecodesign Matrix to distinguish the environmental impact of products based
   on two dimensions, including life cycle and environmental focus. The evaluating factors embrace
   process, use, and disposal in the life cycle factors, and energy, material, pollution, and waste in the
   environmental focus. Most problems related to adverse environmental impact are due to energy,
   material, process, use, disposal, pollution, and waste, all of which can be addressed through the use of
   green technology, green materials, and green manufacturing. As such, this study defines these three
   factors as the three Green DNAs of green products.
   2.3. Green Design Methods
   In the past, some green design methods have been developed to help designers reduce the
   environmental impacts of their products [31–33]. Eastwood and Haapala [34] propose an aggregation
   method to help designers produce three alternative bevel gear designs at the manufacturing stage based
   on the eco-design concept. A lot of researchers apply the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ)
   to create an innovative eco-design method for green products [35,36]. Mann [37] proposes a systematic
   sustainable innovation approach for sustainable products, services, and the product–service system
   based on TRIZ. Some authors integrate TRIZ with other methods to propose eco-innovative approaches
   such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Lean, the Taguchi method, Failure Mode and Effects
   Analysis (FMEA), the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Kano, Axiomatic Design, and so on [38,39].
   Chen and Liu [40,41] present a successful combination of eco-efficiency elements and the 39 TRIZ
   engineering parameters, along with a series of eco-design methods. Chang and Chen [42] also
   present some eco-innovative design methods and green evolution rules based on TRIZ and the design
   around approach.
   The TRIZ method [43] is a useful tool for designers to deal with the conflicts that can arise in the
   process of solving design problems. The TRIZ method was first proposed by Altshuller [44], based in
   the former Soviet Union, who analyzed more than 300,000 patents to establish a contradiction matrix
   with 39 engineering parameters and 40 invention principles. In order to use the TRIZ method in
   problem solving in innovative design, designers need to first discover the corresponding contradictions
   for their current design problems. Secondly, designers have to match the meaning of each design
   problem with two appropriate parameters from among 39 engineering parameters defined in the TRIZ
   contradiction matrix. After determining the contradiction parameters, the designers can find the most
   commonly used principles among the corresponding 40 kinds of invention principles from the TRIZ
   contradiction matrix. However, during this analysis, a problem that designers often encounter is the
   inability to quickly and correctly convert design problems into corresponding engineering parameters.
   Indeed, this is the main problem when designers apply TRIZ to solve design problems.
   2.4. Green Modular and Product Disassembly for Sustainability
   The manufacturing industry is facing the challenge of how to create a product with less impact on
   the environment for a more sustainable society, and green design plays a critical role in this. Green
   product design is defined as the practical application of factors that can reduce the environmental
   impact of products during the design phase. Some design methods have been proposed for green
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   product design, such as design for modular (DFM), design for disassembly (DFD), and design for
   regeneration (DFR). DFM is further extended to “design for green modular”. Because this can improve
   the environmental effectiveness of products, green modular design is now regarded as an important
   design method.
   In recent years, many studies have thus been conducted in the field of green modular design.
   Ishii [45] proposes the concept of “technical modular”, which uses “cluster” analysis to connect
   “modularity” with “product retirement design”. The goal of the “technical module” is to group
   components with the same method of retirement into the same module. Huang et al. [46] adopted five
   basic rules for recycling in a modular design. These embrace the environmental impact of recycling,
   material compatibility, life cycle analysis, recycling profits, and an analysis of structural and physical
   interactions. Gu and Sosale [47] consider the needs of the entire product life cycle and studied modular
   design methods. Umeda et al. [48] propose a modular design method that develops the optimal design
   of a modular structure based on life cycle attributes and geometric information. Tseng et al. [49] use
   a grouped genetic algorithm to gather components into modules that support lifecycle engineering,
   with the resulting green modules derived based on green design factors. Considering the inclusion
   of green factors in the new module, Smith and Yen [50] present a green modular approach based
   on atomic theory, in which the green module is developed by combining or decomposing structural
   modules to reduce the environmental impacts.
   There are many characteristics of “green” products, and design for disassembly (DFD) is one
   of the key factors. Disassembly is usually the first step in the recovery process. In particular,
   manufacturing design and recycling design are based on the concept of disassembly design [51].
   Pnueli and Zussman [52] point out that only 10%–20% of the cost of product recycling depends on
   the product recycling process, and the rest is decided during the product design phase. Seo et al. [53]
   indicate that product disassembly has a strong relationship with the cost of the product lifecycle.
   Prior research also shows that product disassembly is the last and most important process before the
   operations of the product’s value-added recovery [54]. Therefore, product disassembly will directly
   influence the entire product value and sustainability [51].
   Some prior research adopts advanced searching algorithms to discover the best sequences of
   product disassembly. Aguinaga et al. [55] employ a method using fast-growing random trees to find
   the best product disassembly sequences. Kara et al. [56] propose an approach to derive reversed
   assembly sequences, and utilize a liaison diagram to evaluate geometric connections in order to find
   the optimal disassembly sequences of a product. However, this method requires a lot of computing
   resources to generate sequence diagrams, and the infeasible sequences must be removed in the process.
   Shyamsundar and Gadh [57] present a regressive approach that takes into account both the separating
   direction and decomposing direction to disassemble the components of the target product. However,
   these approaches lead to many paths, so it takes a lot of time to find a solution. Moreover, neither the
   time needed nor outcomes obtained can be guaranteed. Furthermore, the resulting sequences are often
   not optimal solutions and usually include interfering elements. Most of the studies discussed above
   address the problem of product disassembly by considering all geometric limitations and evaluating
   each disassembly order to discover the best solution.
   Although many studies can be found of green modular design and disassembly for recycling,
   traditional green modular design and product disassembly design have the drawback of lacking
   overall and comprehensive green design considerations. They just cannot be used to develop the
   most sustainable benefits to products, including how to reduce energy consumption, use green
   materials, and apply green manufacturing. In today’s highly competitive global market, products
   must be replaced at a faster rate than before. Innovative design methods are thus important and have
   been recognized and adopted by some companies because they have the benefits of improving the
   competitiveness of products and reducing the time to market.
   From the brief review of the design methods presented above, we found that these innovative
   approaches have clear implementation steps, but they still have obvious problems in practical design,
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   and cannot really assist companies in developing innovative green products. In particular, there
   are many special formulas and calculations proposed in these methods, which make them hard to
   apply in practical product design. The key point is that they cannot provide the exact processes
   needed for green design, as they only focus on green engineering modularization or green process
   assessments, and this is insufficient for green product design in practical applications. To overcome
   the limitations of prior methods, an innovative green design method is developed in the current
   study, which uses the concepts of the extension method and Green DNAs to solve the related design
   problems. From the viewpoint of practical design, the proposed innovative green design method can be
   regarded as a “decompose–generate–recompose” approach in the “divergence to convergence” process.
   In addition, it can provide an optimal solution for green product design by simultaneously considering
   the environmental impact of products and optimal product structure for green modular design and
   product disassembly design. This is the motivation behind this research to develop a framework that
   guides the designers to perform green analysis and synthesis procedures in new product development
   (NPD).
3. Methodology
   This research is based on the extension method [11] to develop an innovative green design
   method approach for green products. The extension method is a type of systematic method that
   provides engineers and designers with some particular and effective approaches to solving problems.
   This theory was first proposed by a Chinese researcher, Wen Cai [11,58], based on the extension of things.
   So far, it has been widely applied in many fields, including engineering, design, economics, sociology,
   management, etc. [59–62]. The extension method can help designers and engineers decompose
   problems, analyze a series of contexts, recombine problems, and effectively find feasible solutions.
   The extension method embraces four main parts: The matter–element expansion, the transform method,
   the evaluation method, and the diamond-shaped thought method. The proposed innovative green
   design method was developed based on the matter–element extension and transforming method.
   The extension theory and method can provide designers with a decomposing and recomposing
   approach for green product design. This approach will also facilitate the development of green modular
   and product disassembly design for greater product sustainability.
   3.1. Extension Theory and Method
   The extension method is derived from extension theory, which is a type of science that focuses
   on the extension of things, the law of development, the method of adoption, and how to solve
   the contradictions among subjects. There are two main theoretical parts in this method, including
   the matter–element model and the extension set theory. The extension laws of matter–element
   and transformation rules of matter–element are included in the matter–element theory. Extension
   mathematics is based on extension sets, and is a qualitative and quantitative tool that enables
   the extension method to solve contradictory problems. This study mainly adopts two methods:
   The matter–element model and the basic matter–element transformation rules in the extension theory.
   The existing products or technologies are decomposed by using the concept of the matter–element
   model. This is done in order to develop a new matter–element model with basic matter–element
   transformation rules, and then to introduce new products or technologies.