Since 1992, Carnegie Mellon University’s Green Design Initiative has been conducting research to incorporate green design into engineering, manufacturing, and architecture. Three new resources are online: instant lifecycle assessments, end-of-life options for computers, and green design curriculum.
It takes only a few seconds to gage the overall lifecycle environmental impact from 500 categories such as doctors’ offices and hospitals, food and tobacco, livestock and agricultural products, and leather and glass. Pick the category you’re interested in and the tool tells you how much the environmental impact changes as more of that item is produced.
For example, what is the impact of producing a US$20,000 car? Your answer takes into account the supply chain required to manufacture a car such as metal mining, parts manufacture and final assembly. The model covers only production though, not the impact of gasoline or maintenance. The answer comes in the form of energy use, specific air pollutants, hazardous wastes, toxic emissions, and dollar estimates of external air pollution costs. If you are interested in learning more about this topic, the U.S. EPA’s
International Life Cycle Assessment Conference and Exhibition, InLCA will be held in Washington D.C., April 25 – 27, 2000.
The Green Design Initiative has also compiled an international resource list of end-of-life options for electronic products. The good news is that according to a Green Design Initiative study, a 1991 prediction that would be landfilled by 2005 will not come to pass; thanks to increasing numbers of recycling outlets many fewer computers are being dumped. The group concludes that by 2005, 150 million computers will be recycled and 55 million will be landfilled.
The group has also developed environmental education modules and case studies that target high school, undergraduate, graduate, and life-long learning levels. There are examples on the website for topics such as Introduction to Green Design and Disposition of Personal Computers.
Carnegie Mellon Green Design Initiative:
http://www.ce.cmu.edu/GreenDesign
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