5. Conclusion: the future of eco-design

Design processes in industry, and the chemical industry in particular, are changing. They must now respond to the holistic challenge of reducing environmental impacts at every stage of the manufacturing process. They must integrate product or process eco-design. In this approach, life cycle analysis – LCA – is a crucial tool for environmental assessment. By identifying the margins for progress in terms of environmental impact, energy and resource consumption, LCA becomes a strategic tool for innovation. This tool can be used to direct research and development efforts towards the identification of innovative solutions with lower environmental impact, leading to new, "greener", eco-designed products that meet increasingly pressing market and regulatory demands. However, this tool suffers from qualitative and methodological limitations. For example, the definition of assumptions, boundaries,...