EPS SYSTEM

ENVIRONMENTAL PRIORITY STRATEGIES IN PRODUCT DESIGN (EPS-SYSTEM)

Environmental protection is becoming an increasingly important global concern. In order to enable sustainable product development and to guide industry to adopt eco efficiency and a life-cycle thinking into commerce, there is a need for readily understandable system assessment tools. One method that has been specially designed to meet the needs by product developers is the EPS-system (Environmental Priority Strategies in product design). In its first version the EPS system was developed during 1990 and it has then been further improved in the Product Ecology project, a joint three year activity by the Swedish Federation of Industries, 15 major companies,the Chalmers University of Technology and the Swedish Environmental Research Institute. EPS is based on the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. The product environmental LCA has been subject for an intensive development and debate during the last five years. ISO has recently forwarded an international standard on the LCA procedure (ISO). The EPS systems perspective follows this standard. The EPS system has been used in a number of industrial evaluations of, for example cables, refrigerators, printed electric circuits, gasoline, packaging materials and car parts.

The EPS methodology enables conceptualization of environmental relation and their specification as explicit values, trends and validity clarification. It is designed primarily as a decision support tool for product design etc. The EPS system facilitate continuous learning through more explicit dialogue about the relation between the own product system and its surroundings systems, based on an environmental frame of reference.