The objective of this PREMISE research is to use engineering, business, environmental science and public policy knowledge to develop methods and design metrics that enable the integration of design for environment considerations into the design, development, production and marketing of global products. Enforceable guidelines for global manufacturers and material suppliers to use in rating their products will also be developed. This will include approaches for capturing the impact of single components as well as that of assemblies of globally manufactured components. The research results will lead to an educational module on design for environment in the Global Product Development course taught jointly at the University of Michigan, Oxford University and Seoul National University. In return, the course will provide a realistic test bed for research on topics that transcend local and national economies.
The most important benefit of this research is that product designers will have available to them methods for designing environmentally friendly global products. The design for environment rating for global products will provide an analytical tool that can be used for tradeoffs and analyses in various phases of the product development. Global products with "environmental awareness" features will increase the consumer's awareness to environmental issues. The environmental rating scheme will facilitate decision making to distribute the product's raw materials and processing to regions where the environmental impact of production is the lowest. This research will also allow global product development teams to consolidate resources around environmental objectives in a way that is not possible for products that are predominantly local in their production, use and recycling.
