TEIME: A Tool for Environmental IMpacts Evaluation in Product Design

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools are difficult to handle for designers, especially into the range of a short product development time (eg. from 6 months to 3 years) of complex products like electronic devices and cars: industrialists therefore need more simplified tools for Design for Environment (DFE). That is why Ecobilan, supported by a group of multinational electronic industries, is developing a tool for DFE of complex products, based on a life cycle approach called EIME, for Environmental IMpacts Evaluation. The main differences with a LCA are that an EIME integrates qualitative data into the analysis step and that end of life is tackled through product composition and assembly, but not through end of life modelling. This paper presents the EIME methodology and the EIME tool.