Environmental benchmarking methodology for the identification of key environmental aspects of a product

Environmental benchmarking has been used as one of the tools for the identification of key environmental aspects. However, there are limitations of the conventional environmental benchmarking method that include selection of green focal areas and systematic consideration of a product throughout its entire life cycle. This paper proposes a systematic, practical and simplified environmental benchmarking method. The proposed method includes elements such as goal definition, criteria for choosing products for benchmarking, system boundary setting based on function of the product, time for conducting benchmarking, among others. Environmental benchmarking was conducted on two levels: product and major subassemblies. Engineering parameters that represent key environmental aspects are identified together with the measurement method To enhance the comprehension of the designers, the benchmarking results are expressed in the form of table and figure. The proposed method has been applied to four different brands of cellular phones in the Korean market for the application of the method. The evaluation results suggest that the proposed method can provide simple and quick identification of the key environmental aspects of a product throughout its entire life cycle