Eco-Design to Value on the agenda for a special breakfast event

The "eco-design to value" concept and the notion of the "right product" were the focus of a breakfast meeting held on Thursday, 27th June 2024 by EVEA and HUTISA at EVEA's premises in Nantes, France.

How can the environmental performance of products be reconciled with their economic performance? A broad question indeed. Participants, who were professionals from the Grand Ouest region, exchanged views on the subject and benefited from the experiences shared by Ali Maiga of FDI-Groupe Urmet and Jérome Bouchez (Synerpod). These two industrialists have successfully combined innovation, eco-design, and competitiveness in their respective products through inspiring projects.

Among the many key ideas retained:

• The right product is a matter of compromise.
• The eco-design to value approach is a three-dimensional design process: functions, costs, and impacts are correlated and require trade-offs at each stage of the project.
• Other constraints must also be considered: technical, architectural, partner-related, etc.
• The projects presented by Ali Maiga and Jérome Bouchez demonstrated that the eco-design approach can enhance the service provided without excess; in other words, the "right functions" increase the product's usage and environmental value.
• Cost reduction and environmental impact reduction often go hand in hand.
• The project's "why", its raison d'être, must be clearly defined in advance to balance the issues and cross-referenced criteria at each stage.
• Multidisciplinarity is essential for the success of projects, involving internal teams, partners, and all ecosystems (customers, users, etc.).
• The more cross-functional approaches (design-cost-environment) are practised, the better the trade-offs are orchestrated.

Thank you to the participants, the CNA (Conseil National des Achats), and the EMC2 Competitiveness Cluster for their support, as well as our partners Sylvain Faure, Clémentine Breton, Anne-Isabelle Rausa-Dupasquier (HUTISA), and Nicolas Libeaut (Fox Design & Stratégie) for their assistance in the reflection and organisation.

To learn more about this topic, please contact Maud Blondel and Yannik Frank from our Tomorrow's Goods and Services team here. ■