The EcoDesign 2011 conference was held in Kyoto, Japan, from 30th November to 2nd December (2011). The conference received about 340 participants from 23 countries and about 230 presentations in total, including oral presentations and posters.

One day before the conference, it was held a satellite workshop in Tokyo where issues related to the legislation and standards in Europe (ErP directive,REACH, RohS and WEEE) were discussed by Nils Nissen (Fraunhofer IZM, Germany).

The conference was organized in plenary sessions, oral presentations and poster presentations. During the plenary sections, some companies presented their approaches for the ecodesign implementation:

• Panasonic: it was presented the environmental vision of Panasonic, which is described as “make the environment central to all of our business activities and bring forth innovation”. In order to achieve this vision, Panasonic had combined green indexes (such as CO2 emission and recycling resources) with global excellence indexes (such as sales and ROE) and established targets for 2018. The focus of the presentation was on the targets and employed practices for (1) CO2 reduction and (2) resources recycling.
• Siemens: the value of Siemens is to be “innovative for sustainable innovation creation”. Since 2008, Siemens has an environmental portfolio which includes renewable energy, energy technology and energy efficiency which represented, in 2010, 35% of the total revenue. Siemens is on the Down Jones Sustainability Index and on the Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index.
• Kone: Kone is a company which develops escalators, automatic building doors and elevators and focuses its action on the increase of the energy efficiency of their products. Over the last years, it was achieve a considerable increase of the energy efficiency of escalators, elevators and automatic building doors, which supports its clients in the LEEDs certification for green buildings.

The main topics discussed during the oral presentations were:

• Sustainable manufacturing (3 sessions);
• Envisioning and designing sustainable manufacturing industry (2 sessions);
• Green electronics (2 sessions);
• Green business strategy (2 sessions);
• Design for sustainable behavior (2 sessions);
• Social infrastructures for sustainability (2 sessions);
• Policy and economic incentives (2 sessions);
• PSS and Life Cycle Management (2 sessions);
• Stimulating eco-innovation by promoting meso-level research project (2 sections);
• Exergy design (2 sections);
• Operations management (2 sections);
• Emerging technology (3 sessions);
• Sustainable energy system (2 sessions);
• Zero CO2 emissions society (1 session);
• Green telecommunication (1 session);
• Product ecodesign method (1 session);
• Ecodesign support tool (1 session);
• AIST 3R Technology R&D (1 session);
• Concept of ecodesign assessment method (1 session);
• Workshop: design for remanufacturing (1 session);
• Eco-labelling and footprint (1 session);
• Sustainability assessment and LCA (1 session);
• Green business design (1 session);

I presented the paper “Ecodesign Maturity Model: the Ecodesign Practices” which was developed during my PhD at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, in the session “Green business strategy”. The paper presents the main concept of the Ecodesign Maturity Model (EcoM2), which aims to support companies into the selection and implementation of ecodesign practices into the product development process, considering their strategic drivers and goals, and focuses on the explanation of the ecodesign practices.

I would like to recommend the following papers from the oral presentations I attended:

• “An easy-to-use methodological proposal for considering ubiquitous controllers in energy use optimization” – Els Du-Bois 1, Imre Horvath 2 (1. Artesis, BE; 2. TU Delft, NL);
• “Ecodesign through Environmental Risk Management – a focus on critical materials” - Stafford Lloyd 1,2, Jacquetta Lee 2, Andrew Clifton 1, Lucia Elghali 2, Chris France 2 (1.Rolls-Royce plc, UK; 2. University of Surrey, UK);
• “Building Sustainable Product Service Systems between SMEs” - Ricardo J. Hernandez-Pardo, Tracy Bhamra (Loughborough University,UK );
• “Identifying the End of Life Decision Making Factors” - Kirsty Doyle, Winifred L. Ijomah, Jiju Antony (University of Strathclyde, UK);
• “Building a Holistic Understanding of Reverse Logistics for SME Automotive Remanufacturers” - David Stewart, Winifred L. Ijomah (University of Strathclyde, UK);
• “Design for Remanufacture: Organizational Factors Influencing Successful Integration into the Design Process” - Gillian D. Hatcher, Winifred L. Ijomah, James F.C. Windmill (University of Strathclyde, UK);
• “Proposal of a Methodology for Supporting Generation of New Eco-Business Ideas” - Nobuo Nakamura 1,2, Kohei Mandai 1, Shinichi Fukushige 1, Yasushi Umeda 1 (1.Osaka University, JP; 2.a-Socca Inc., JP);
• “Greening the Design Brief” - Kristel R. Dewulf 1,2,3, Renee Wever 1, Han C. Brezet 1 (1.Delft University of Technology, NE; 2. Ghent University, BE; 3. University College of West-Flanders, BE);
• “Ecolabelling and Design for Environment in Building Transportation Systems” - Asko Koskimaki 1, Hannele Tonteri 1, Claudio Donghi 2, Hanna Uusitalo 2 (1.VTT, FI; 2.KONE Corporation, FI);
• “New Life Cycle Assessment Process for Strategic Reduction of Environmental Burdens” - Shigeki Nitta, Yoshihisa Moriguchi (Mazda Motor Corporation, JP);

It could be noted the emerging importance in addressing the management issues related to the ecodesign implementation into companies. During the oral presentations, it was presented the efforts carried out by some companies in cooperation with universities for the ecodesign implementation, such as Embraer and Rolls-Royce (aerospace industry); Chanel, Guerlain and L´oreal (cosmetics industry); Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Telefonica and France Telecom (telecommunication industry); Sharp, Hitachi and Shimizu printing (electronics industry); Caterpillar Remanufacturing and Components division; UL Japan and K&L GmbH (consulting companies); Kone, Mazda Motor Corporation and Aleph Inc. (transportation industry).

The topics addressed in the poster sessions were:

• Ecodesign methods and tools (15 papers);
• Computational analysis method (7 papers);
• Sustainable manufacturing (6 papers);
• Recycling (1 paper);
• Emerging technology (8 papers);
• Policy and economic incentives (7 papers);
• Green businesses and consumer behaviors (5 papers);
• Sustainability assessment and LCA (10 papers);
• New energy system (4 papers);
• Electric vehicle infrastructure (3 papers);
• Ecodesign concept (2 papers);
• Ecodesign of urban structures ( 1 paper);
• Ecodesign of building and amenities (5 papers);
• Ecosystem (1 paper);
• Environmental education (2 papers);
• Solid waste management (5 papers);
• Water management (5 papers).

All the papers presented in the conference (plenary sessions, oral presentations and poster presentations) are in the annals of the conference (attached).