Is 80% of environmental impact determined during the design phase, or not?

The implementation of Ecodesign leads to lower environmental impacts. It has been estimated that that up to 80% of all environmental impacts are determined during the design phase of products, This holds for all products and for their whole life cycle.

I think the claim originated from the EU Eco-design Directive. The original source/report is missing. You can find more info in the following link.

@Christopher: Yes, it has been estimated. Many times, by many authors. What I'm looking for is the basis for those estimations. Who made the original 80% claim, and based on what? It is too much of an "everybody knows that..." at the moment.

@Atiq: The claim is definitely older than the EU EcoDesign Directive. scientific papers have been including the claim in the introduction section for at least over a decade.

Renee, the idea was around in the 90s in discussons with the ECO2IRN group. Tim MacAloone or Tracey Bhamra would likely know the docs from then. It echoed the earlier (1970s) claims that in engineering design 80% of costs are determined by design decisions. Its false for many designs regardless of its use as a memorable sound bite. It doesn't take into account the consequence for a design of post-design decisions made about it or other products. One example, aircraft engines are currently being installed to provide the fast startup electric generation that enables increased use of wind farms. The cost/gains are in regard to other designed outcomes. Aesthetics and marketing can lead to much longer polluting use. For example, the cultural traditions mean large station wagons from 30-40 years ago are still widely used in Australia even though their pollution is around 100x that of a current car. A third example, attractiveness of new products can result in prior products leaving the market much earlier than expected. This is outside the scope of the design decisions and compromises the environmental cost calculations. There are many more contradictions that suggest the 80% environmental cost theory is naive at least.

Important project is the institutional framework.

Probably dependency 80:20 (Pareto) can be found in all social processes.

In my research I measured the 20:80 (ex ante) : (ex post) cost.

At a given context (or point of time), the decision making process is probably capable of capturing 20% of the success or failure attributes of a product. And hence, to my guess, the 80-20 Pareto rule works.

But to my opinion:

There is no limit. If one looks at the environment impact (EI) of a product from a lifecycle prospective, the EI can be throughout the life-time journey of a product (from design to delivery, again recovery and recycle or may be the degradable/non-degradable end). EI can be due to the suppliers of the suppliers; processors/producers; up to customers of the customers; and the micro-/macro- business environment. A designer may not have a magic-band to take care of all those EI aspects. It depends on the degree of integration and collaboration of the lifecycle issues for a particular product. Concurrent engineering (CE) philosophy along with other soft technologies may enable to a large extent to achieve this. Like the organization wide involvement of the resources in disseminating the TQM philosophy, if concurrent designing is done at all levels of sources and destinations (i.e. all phase) then it can bring the most optimal result. Again what is most optimal today, may not be tomorrow, so continuous improvement and consistent effort in design and redesigning of the product (new models, substitutes, variants ….) can come and extend the last phase of PLC to a large extent before a product declines.

Good question. I think this is an example of the design research community's lack of rigour...

I think that the "80% of environmental impacts are determined in the design stage" was taken from the idea that design determines 70-90% of a product's manufacturing costs. The earliest references that I could find on this was a 1991 report by the US National Research Council (NRC) - see http://books.google.fr/books?id=zIcruSqJFk8C&lpg=PA160&ots=Hp9dpCdP4P&dq=1991%20National%20Research%20Council%20Report%20Improving%20Engineering%20Design%2070%25&pg=PA160#v=onepage&q=1991%20National%20Research%20Council%20Report%20Improving%20Engineering%20Design%2070%25&f=false

Ulrich and Pearson (1993) tried to investigate where the number comes from in this article: http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/47202/doesproductdesig00ulri.pdf

It turns out that it is probably a quote from an informal survey done at Ford. I suspect the Pareto (80/20) was the basis for the estimate.

I remember as an engineering student that a figure called "Who casts the biggest shadow?" was often used to explain the principle (see second slide: http://www.ncms.org/wp-content/NCMS_files/CTMA/Symposium2008/presentations/GnamLeanGreenCTMAApr2008.pdf), but I think these are just estimated numbers.

The 80% rule of thumb has since been to used to justify the importance of design whether Design for Manufacturing, Design for Environment/Ecodesign or any other DfX approach. The idea of the design phase determining costs and impacts throughout the life cycle of products was formalised in the Theory of Dispositions (Olesen, 1992).

It is interesting to see how an estimate has become a rule even to the extent that it is used as justification for legislation such as the EU Ecodesign Directive...

It depends on the product...I have investigated LCA of buidlings, which are quite complex products, and as a matter of fact approximately 80% of a building's environmental impact over its life cycle is determined during the use phase.

You can have a look at my paper :

F. Asdrubali, C. Baldassarri, V.Fthenakis: “Life Cycle Analysis in the construction sector: guiding the optimization of conventional Italian buildings”, Energy and Buildings, 64 (2013), 73-89.

you can download it from Research Gate

Please look at the Environmental Briefing book, RMI did a lot of early work arguing for front loading the design process, the idea was that most of the crutial decisions concerning the

Please look at the Environmental Briefing book, RMI did a lot of early work arguing for front loading the design process, the idea was that most of the crutial decisions concerning the environmental impact are major strategic decisions and are difficult to add into the design at the later stages.

The Environmental Brief: Pathways for Green Design (Google eBook)

Front Cover

Richard Hyde, Steve Watson, Wendy Cheshire, Mark Thomson

Taylor & Francis, 09/01/2007 - Architecture - 336 pages

1 Review

The built environment is responsible for an estimated forty-five per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions. As the greatest opportunities for reducing these emissions occur during the briefing and design processes, the pathway to better design lies in preparing environmental briefs, and using these to drive building design and produce buildings of high environmental performance. This process-driven book looks at the theoretical issues involved in an environmental brief, and outlines methods by which architects can approach the writing of a brief that considers all aspects of the natural and the built environment, and relates these concepts to a number of case studies from around the world.

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I do not believe there is a claim that 80% of a product's environmental impact over its life cycle is determined during the use phase. The division of environmental impacts on various life cycle stages of a product depend on the product itself. For some products such as packaging, the biggest environmental impact is allocated at the end of life stage. For the electrical products it is during their use phase. This is the reason why the ecodesign procedure depends on the kind of the products. As far as the 80% rule it is an objective not the outcome.

As a designer of buildings, no one has that kind of control. There are codes and standards that must be followed that dictate much of the requirements. The users make a lot of requests and we as designers can inform them of the impact of those requests, however the ultimate decision is with the owner and users as it's their money. Some users will defer to our expert opinion, some won't.

Then when a building is in it's use phase, it rarely operates as designed more than a year after commissioning. As systems are repaired or are replaced, the original design documents typically aren't reviewed. This is because the people replacing them typically don't have the time or money to do that work because the building needs to be up and running ASAP. Also, turn over in building operators who might be given a few hours of training leads to long term operational issues as the new operator may not know the intent of the system design nor how to maximize it's benefits.

As far as products go, my thought would be that it's up to the designer to enable to the users to be environmental. If a product is designed to be recycled and the user throws that product in the trash, it's not the designers bad design. Not sure how many aluminum cans I've seen in the trash immediately adjacent to a recycling bin, but being sustainable requires everyone to do their part.

In other words, 100% of the environmental impact lies with 100% of the people that come in contact with the product.

Hi Fils and all,

I developed a couple of approaches to model complex systems involved in architecture and urban planning for decision making. . . . Early days for the program (first published in 2007) but seems to work well, especially in 'wicked problem' territory.

A colleague Peter Love has done far more work in that area, particularly relating to rework - which can map onto environmental cost . An example is Lopez, R., and P. Love. 2012. “Design Error Costs in Construction Projects.” ASCE Journal of Construction, Engineering and Management 138 (5): 585-593.

The often repeated and cited claim is that 80% of a product's environmental impact over its life cycle is determined during the use phase (with the connected assumption that that 80% is within the power of the designer to control). But where did this claim originate, and what is the actual empirical evidence, both for the percentage of the impact determined by decisions in the design phase, and for the percentage that is actually within the power of a designer to influence?

Studies show that about only 5% of the budget is spent on design, about 70 to 80% of the product cost is committed in design stage (Kamal et al., 1995; Stevens, 2002; Figure 3.1). Intelligent computer-aided design has the ability to reduce the downstream fire-fighting drastically due to early manufacturing considerations. Hence, the technology is recognized as a creativity enhancer as well as productivity multiplier for the manufacturing industry.

With respect to noise emissions of power generation facilities: My experience on large A/E projects in the 1980s and early 1990s was that we had to account for environmental community noise impacts and reaction during the design phase, and set criteria for developing appropriate project costs to prevent adverse community reaction (land, steel, noise controls). Since the emergence of independent Power Production and separation of generation and transmission, I notice most applicants aren't bothering to assess community noise impact and reaction, at all. This is a fundamental design omission that reaps difficulties later including strong complaints, appeals to stop the noise, and vigorous legal action.

Architectural Design: I see these omissions in architectural design as well; much of my consulting involves remediation of excessive reverberation and poor speech intelligibility indoors due to inattentive architectural design during Schematic Design and Design Development phases.

According to me, his is from an anlogy from the Pareto's law used in costs design...

An effective ecodesign process supposes that the total environmental impacts of the product during its whole life cycle should be identified earlier in the design phase, as the possibility to make change in the product is maximal at this stage. However there is a paradox regarding  the product data (material, assembly, ....) which is not yet well defined at this stage. This is may be the reason why people make analogy with the costing and approximate evaluation based on the previous designed similar products (baseline)

Moreover,  it seems curiously true that quite 80% of environmental impacts of products are due to the use phase (especially in transport sector). This is due to the allocation method used to model the process in LCA databases, which says that there is a linear relationship between the mass and the fuel consumption.

I found it in DTU's (McAloone & Bey's) (2009) Guide for Environmental Improvement through Product Development (see: http://orbit.dtu.dk/files/3996106/mpu-elektronisk-uk.pdf)

Being at the sub-origin of a product (straight after sourcing), arguably the origin (design determines the need/sourcing), it makes quite a lot of sense that product design is responsible for 80% of the total footprint. It is during the design phase that you determine the product, packaging, routing, end-of-life systems and recollection possibilites ...

Although many answers here do not really answer your question: "does it have 80% impact or no?", I believe it can steer the process and global footprint of 80%, if not cause.

Have you checked @LeylaAcaroglu ?

The statement can also be found in the following two resources:

1. ‘Sustainable Product Policy’, EU Science Hub, last updated 12 December 2018 https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/research-topic/sustainable-product-policy, the following is stated: ‘Over 80% of all product-related environmental impacts can be influenced during the design phase’

2. Donato, J., ‘Design Products for Sustainability’, British Plastic Foundation, http://bpf.co.uk/Sustainable_Manufacturing/Design/Designing_Sustainability.aspx: 'The Design Council recently estimated that 80 % of the cost of a product is set at the design stage, and therefore reducing the environmental impact of any product during  the concept design is actually the most beneficial stage at which to make cost savings'.

" It is a proactive approach to environmental protection that addresses lie-cycle environmental concerns in the product design stage. Decisions made during that stage profoundly influence the entire life cycle of the product and determine 80 to 90 percent of its total lie-cycle costs." (Graedel et al., 1995:17).

Graedel, T. E., Comrie, P. R. and Sekutowski, J. C. (1995) ‘Green Product Design’, AT&T Technical Journal, 74(6), pp. 17–25. doi: 10.1002/j.1538-7305.1995.tb00262.x.

Renee Wever I hope this answers your question. I recently found the reference as I needed it to use for my PhD Thesis.

Thanks Cathryn Anneka Hall, but this is just another example of the problem, although a rather early one. The claim is made (even without a reference here), but no data to substantiate the claim is presented. What evidence do we have that this claim is true or not, and under which conditions?

It's been 6,5 years since I asked this question here. It has been in the back of my mind, and I've discussed it offline with many people, but I still haven't seen any proper data (neither data that was the original source, nor new data verifying the claim).

So if your thesis isn't finished yet, I'd advise to use "it is often claimed", or "it is widely believed".

Hi Renee, I touch upon (and question it) in my PhD thesis – especially in complex product development settings such control rarely exists. Thesis here:

Another unclear reference to design's 80% influence (this time for clothing) can be found here:

With a reference to this publication:

However the original source is not there either.

According to Niinimaki (2011:26), this claim is made by Tischner and Charter (2001:120). I haven't read T&C, but I'm working my way through Niinimaki's discussion of sustainable fashion.

Niinimaki, Kirsi. 2011. From Disposable to Sustainable: The Complex Interplay between Design and Consumption of Textiles and Clothing. PhD dissertation, Aalto University.

Tischner, U. and Charter, M. 2001. Sustainable product design. In M. Charter and U. Tischner (Eds.), Sustainable Solutions, Developing Products and Services for the Future. Sheffield: Greenleaf, 118-138.

How cool to come across you question and this thread via an Internet search:

I was looking for the exact same evidence behind the claim as it is presented in a call for a speciale issue in Design Science for 1. feb 2021. I have been through all the listed ref.and their ref. and there is no evidence - (and my LCA colleauges don't know of any LCA papers w. evidence etither) it's like a loop, where the point is being repreated over and over again - and now implemented in the EU Ecodesign guide. Let me know if you want to write a critical paper together on this?

In 'Introduction and Sustainable Product Development’ https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39149-2_1 which is the first chapter of my book 'Sustainable Product Development' published by Springer this year, I cited several references about the 80% claim including the one I posted March 3 2019 above. Any one interested in the article, please e-mail to daizhong.su@ntu.ac.uk

It's a good point and makes sense - but there is no evidence or data that test this claim - It seem to just be repeated without the ref to the evidence - going in loop...

I believe the way Ramani et al. (2010) puts it might help: "It is well known that although only 5–7% of the entire product cost is attributable to early design, the decisions made during this stage lock in 70–80% of the total product cost (12). Correspondingly, one can hypothesize the same to be the case for environmental impacts. That is, whether or not a product is relatively sustainable is largely determined during the early design stage."

So, there are two critical features:

At the end of the day, that specific % of environmental impact would vary according to what life-cycle impacts are accounted for, the type of product/service system, and a number of characteristics of the intervention.

So, we must be cautious when trying to point out general numbers.

Ramani, K., Ramanujan, D., Bernstein, W. Z., Zhao, F., Sutherland, J., Handwerker, C., ... & Thurston, D. (2010). Integrated sustainable life cycle design: a review.

I open this thread again, hoping to propose a good answer.

I think the quote is from the famous book "In the Bubble. Designing in a Complex World" by John Thackara (2005). On the first page, he says, "Eighty percent of the environmental impact of the products, services, and infrastructures around us is determined at the design stage". The related note explains that this data is a statistic quoted in Design Council, Annual Review 2002 (London: Design Council, 2002), 19.

Renee Wever this diagram about tackling carbon early, from Infrastructure Carbon Review, HM Treasury 2013, well illustrates the potential of early decisions to reduce carbon by over 80% by Building Less. I noticed you asked your Question in 2013 too, and am unsure if the diagram originated earlier.

There is increasing attention to reducing the carbon 'embodied' in initial production and construction that is around 80% of the total over building lifetime, and constraining growth in built floor area by sufficiency strategies such as building less or not at all. See https://vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/towards-embodied-carbon-benchmarks-for-buildings-in-europe-3-defi-2. While designers may influence up front decisions, the report indicates that, for larger projects, policies should be targeted at investors and the like.

The Breakthrough Agenda Report 2023/buildings also raises (pp 115-6, 129) the need for sufficiency policies to tackle global growth in floor area, a major cause of rising emissions in the sector: https://www.iea.org/reports/breakthrough-agenda-report-2023