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Nestlé adopted a simplifi ed ecodesign approach early in the design phase since
many years through the implementation of PIQET (Karli et al. 2010 ), a tool that
optimizes the environmental performance of packaging. Since then, packaging
designers using life cycle assessment to support their design choices is signifi cantly
increased.
Several studies (Humbert et al. 2009 ; Kim et al. 2013 ) have shown that in the
food and beverage industry the product itself generally dominates the impacts of
any life cycle assessment (LCA) and that, comparatively, packaging has a limited
impact on the environment. The resolution to expand the ecodesign approach to the
products was therefore an obvious decision for Nestlé. To do so, a new simplifi ed
ecodesign tool, EcodEX (Schenker et al. 2014 ), has been adopted to evaluate the
current and new products, taking into account the whole life cycle, including consumer behavior.
2 Implementing EcodEX: A Product Design Tool at Nestlé
2.1 Initial Brief
Prior to the choice to develop a specifi c tool for product ecodesign, a detailed
requirement analysis was completed indicating that the ideal tool has to:
• Be user-friendly: because the users are not LCA experts and results must be
quickly generated at a moment’s notice, the tool has to be easy and quickly ready
for use.
• Be linked to Nestlé’s recipe management IT system in order to ensure high quality ingredient data, processing data and eventually other types of data, without
spending a lot of time on data collection.
• Give reliable results: although the tool is a simplifi ed tool, the results must be as
robust as possible to support relevant decisions.
The direct benefi ts of implementing EcodEX include products with better environmental performances as well as conscious decision-making where a design alternative with a better environmental performance is selected (e.g., for reasons other than
environmental reasons, such as legal compliance, consumer preference or quality).
2.2 A Growing Number of Users
EcodEX (Selerant Corporation 2015 ) has been regularly used by the Nestlé R&D
community for approximately 1 year now. To date, approximately 700 users have
analyzed over 900 LCA scenarios. In addition, approximately 1,5000 packaging
scenarios which were generated using PIQET over the last 6 years are available. The
A. Adams et al.
Nestlé adopted a simplifi ed ecodesign approach early in the design phase since
many years through the implementation of PIQET (Karli et al. 2010 ), a tool that
optimizes the environmental performance of packaging. Since then, packaging
designers using life cycle assessment to support their design choices is signifi cantly
increased.
Several studies (Humbert et al. 2009 ; Kim et al. 2013 ) have shown that in the
food and beverage industry the product itself generally dominates the impacts of
any life cycle assessment (LCA) and that, comparatively, packaging has a limited
impact on the environment. The resolution to expand the ecodesign approach to the
products was therefore an obvious decision for Nestlé. To do so, a new simplifi ed
ecodesign tool, EcodEX (Schenker et al. 2014 ), has been adopted to evaluate the
current and new products, taking into account the whole life cycle, including consumer behavior.
2 Implementing EcodEX: A Product Design Tool at Nestlé
2.1 Initial Brief
Prior to the choice to develop a specifi c tool for product ecodesign, a detailed
requirement analysis was completed indicating that the ideal tool has to:
• Be user-friendly: because the users are not LCA experts and results must be
quickly generated at a moment’s notice, the tool has to be easy and quickly ready
for use.
• Be linked to Nestlé’s recipe management IT system in order to ensure high quality ingredient data, processing data and eventually other types of data, without
spending a lot of time on data collection.
• Give reliable results: although the tool is a simplifi ed tool, the results must be as
robust as possible to support relevant decisions.
The direct benefi ts of implementing EcodEX include products with better environmental performances as well as conscious decision-making where a design alternative with a better environmental performance is selected (e.g., for reasons other than
environmental reasons, such as legal compliance, consumer preference or quality).
2.2 A Growing Number of Users
EcodEX (Selerant Corporation 2015 ) has been regularly used by the Nestlé R&D
community for approximately 1 year now. To date, approximately 700 users have
analyzed over 900 LCA scenarios. In addition, approximately 1,5000 packaging
scenarios which were generated using PIQET over the last 6 years are available. The
A. Adams et al.