This award supports an effort to facilitate cooperation and knowledge sharing, and experiences between US and international leaders in the field of sustainable product development. Funding will provide support for 12 US participants to travel and take part in a workshop and conference titled Sustainable Manufacturing: IV Global Conference on Sustainable Product Development and Life Cycle Engineering, held in Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 3rd - 6th, 2006. The objectives of the workshop and conference include: assess the state-of-the art of Environmentally Benign Design and Manufacturing (EBDM) as compare to the previous NSF sponsored WTEC study; assess the gap between research and applications in this field; develop a recommendations for moving towards sustainable products and enterprises; and identify specific collaborative projects between research teams from Asia, EU, South America and US.
The outcome of this award will be a report that will form part of the basis for a final EBDM roadmap, a prioritized list of recommendations to address current and future needs in the EBDM area, a list of specific topics and opportunities for collaborative projects between international research teams.
