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Abstract
This paper presents the results of an empirical study, investigating the uptake of ecodesign by
industrial design consultancies (ID consultancies) in Australia, China, Germany and the USA.
Designing products for a low environmental load, usually termed as ecodesign, offers high potential to
reduce the environmental impact of our society, aiming for a sustainable development. However, there
still appears to be no widespread uptake of ecodesign into product development praxis by industrial
designers, with most ecodesign activity focusing on the engineering phase. Especially seldom are the
necessary radical interventions to significantly improve the environmental performance of products.
The literature review revealed that ID consultancies might be in a position to improve this situation.
This paper presents the findings of a website content analysis, investigating the extent of ecodesign
uptake by ID consultancies in Australia, China, Germany and the US. Those four countries were
chosen to see if different, country specific frameworks impact on the attitude of ID consultancies
towards ecodesign.
The paper verifies that ID consultancies have a high potential to improve ecodesign uptake by using
their influence especially on early phases of the product development process and by addressing also
non engineering related issues for ecodesign. This potential does not appear to be fully embraced yet.
The paper concludes by identifying the highest representation of ecodesign on websites of Australian
ID consultancies and the lowest on websites of Chinese ID consultancies. The way ID consultancies
practice ecodesign is very country specific. Understanding the differences and developing
recommendations how ID consultancies can better unfold their ecodesign potential requires deeper
investigations in the case specific factors.