Eco-Design and Ecological Transition

3Eco-design in Companies: Practices and Decisive Actions

In 2010, in a survey of 400 companies, 20% of French companies declared that they were systematically integrating an eco-design process, 13% were starting the process, 29% were interested and 38% were not interested or did not feel concerned (ADEME 2022c). Eco-design practices were therefore a reality for a third of the sample. In the previous chapter, we studied how eco-design as a method of innovation had developed as a response by industry to environmental issues. Two categories of eco-design are present: a technocentric approach in which LCA dominates and a sustainable design combining social and environmental dimensions.

The objective of this chapter is to evaluate the contribution of eco-design approaches to the ecological transition. In a systemic approach, we will analyze eco-design practices in order to assess the extent to which there are factors favorable to the ecological transition and what type of eco-design is encouraged.

In the first section, we will present the systemic approach. In the second section, we will analyze the characteristics of the socio-technical systems in which eco-design approaches have been developed by distinguishing the elements of the socio-technical systems, the relationships between these elements and the coordination of the activities by the institutions. In the third section, we will study two visible aspects of the dynamics introduced by eco-design in the socio-technical systems: ...