The development of a design tool for the improvement of products sustainability

In the last years, the attention paid to Sustainable Development problems has certainly helped in sensitizing the industrial world, caused either by new specific standards and regulations oriented to the environmental impacts reduction, or by the more and more important requestfor "eco-products". In such a context, the importance of designers clearly stands out: the benefits of making "green" decisions in the early stages of the product design can be substantial. The goal of the research is the development of an Integrated Design Procedure aimed at the development of Sustainable Products, which takes into account the more efficient design tools now available to the designer, considering them within a well organized Design Process. Such a Procedure has been developed in a software, called ECO-DECOS, which represents a useful and easy to use design tool, able to lead even those designers with little experience to achieve optimal results.