The manufacture, use, and disposal of products inevitably involves the use of natural resources and has an impact on the environment. The question is therefore: How can I develop products in such a way that they have less impact on the environment? An important goal of ecodesign is to design products, services, and systems intelligently and under socially fair conditions in such a way that their negative impact on the environment remains as low as possible throughout all stages of their life cycle. What exactly does that mean? An environmentally friendly product should be durable, repairable, material-efficient, energy-efficient, low in problematic substances, made from renewable raw materials, and recyclable.

There are already some promising approaches to sustainable consumer goods, well-designed rental systems, repair services, and technical innovations. To give you an idea, we present some examples that have been successfully implemented.

Until 2016, there was no solution in Germany for an area where food is left over and ends up in the trash: places where meals are served or sold every day. The eco-social company Too Good To Go developed an app that allows unsold food to be picked up from restaurants, cafes, bakeries, supermarkets, and hotels and taken away in environmentally friendly packaging or your own food storage containers.

Many electrical appliances are also disposed of even though they could still be repaired. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates the annual increase in electronic waste worldwide at 40 million tons, with Germany in the upper mid-range in terms of electronic waste production. Those who want to repair instead of throwing away often have to spend a lot of time researching what alternatives are available and whether they are worthwhile. To promote repair, kaputt.de offers a nationwide comparison portal for repair solutions for electrical appliances. Repair is often worthwhile, especially for mobile phones, although advertising and marketing suggest that buying a new one as quickly as possible is the best solution.

The manufacture of functional underwear from synthetic fibers is associated with high environmental impacts. There are now a number of suppliers whose functional underwear is completely sustainable, both in the value creation process and throughout its entire life cycle. High ethical and social criteria are implemented in raw material procurement, production, and distribution. The trend is moving away from synthetic fibers toward natural materials.

You can find these and many other best practice examples in our list of links at the end of the article. 

The Federal Ecodesign Award is the highest government award for ecological design in Germany. Since 2012, the Federal Ecodesign Award has been presented annually by the Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Federal Environment Agency. Companies, designers, and young designers can apply with their products, service systems, or concepts. Several hundred submissions each year show that there is already a wide range of ecological design concepts in companies. For more information about the award, the winning submissions, and the current call for entries, please see the list of links below.

The task of the European Environment Agency is to collect and process information on environmental issues and make it available to the public. It holds three areas of consumption in particular—food and agriculture, mobility and tourism, and housing and energy consumption in buildings—responsible for around 80% of all environmental pollution in Western industrialized nations. It therefore makes a lot of sense to start making improvements in these areas of consumption. Important measures here include, for example

• a low-meat diet and the reduction of food waste,
• Reducing car traffic and the associated emissions, e.g., through appropriate urban planning, car-sharing systems, or fuel-efficient cars.
• Reducing energy consumption in buildings through better technical infrastructure (heating, air conditioning, hot water, insulation), energy-efficient appliances, and changes in usage habits.

Improvements are particularly easy to make with durable goods: provided that products have a sufficient service life, continuing to use them is generally the more environmentally friendly option. Exceptions to this are appliances with high energy consumption. In this case, it makes more sense to purchase a new appliance. Before throwing something away, an essential key to more sustainable consumption is therefore to extend its useful life.

Ask yourself five questions to help you identify an environmentally friendly product before you buy it:

• Is the product useful, does it fulfill a meaningful (social and societal) function, and does it solve a problem?
• Is it efficient and effective in its use of resources and energy?
• Does it use renewable energies (even in its manufacture): sun, water, wind, geothermal energy, muscle power, or sustainably produced biofuels?
• Is it safe, risk-free, ergonomic, free of harmful substances, and harmless to humans and nature?
• Is it reasonably durable: short- or long-lasting, depending on its function?