The role of eco-design education in influencing the designof electrical and electronic equipment: a case study involving industrial design engineering students

• Autores: V. Pérez-Belis, María Dolores Bovea Edo
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 32, no. Extra 4, 2016, págs. 1719-1731
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence that environmental education in eco-design has on industrial designengineer students facing the design of electrical and electronic toys. From the designer’s perspective, eco-design educationimproves the extent to which environmental requirements are incorporated into the design process of electrical andelectronic equipment, thus allowing for the development of products with enhanced environmental performance andgreater potential for reuse or recycling. Taking electrical and electronic toys as a target product category, a workshopintended for students of bachelor’s and master’s degrees related to Industrial Design Engineering, was organized in aSpanish University. The main objective was to determine the extent to which designers include environmentalrecommendations into the process of designing their products and what type of recommendations they incorporate. Inaddition, this study determines differences among students from different educational profiles and analyzes the willingnessof designers and future designers to participate in this kind of initiatives. The results suggest that training designers in theend-of-life of products and their environmental issues in a practical way makes them more willing to incorporateenvironmental requirements into the design process of electrical and electronic toys.