Project of the EU Leonardo da Vinci Programme

This project aims at transferring knowledge on Ecodesign to a target group with a significant impact on product design - small and medium sized companies. This goal will be achieved through initial training of environmental trainers and consultants, who will then train the company representatives responsible for product design. The transfer shall be based on a development of methodological and technical training materials that shall be tested, evaluated and improved in a course of practical trainings carried out in selected companies. 

The products of this project will be made available in English and in local languages (CZ, LT, LV, and EE) on the project website as well as through brochures, manuals, publications, etc.

In addition to SMEs the results of this project will be beneficial to sectoral organisations, governmental organisations promoting environmental activities, as well as municipalities, educational institutions and professional public.

Ecodesign (environmentally friendly design) is an innovative concept that focuses on incorporating environmental aspects into product design and development. Ecodesign aims primarily at increasing the product quality, decreasing environmental as well as actual and potential health impacts of products and production. Analyses carried out by the partner organisations from new member countries (CZ, LV, LT and EE) within previous projects and activities show that in their countries some theoretical studies on Ecodesign have already been carried out and the concept is relatively well known to the professional public. However, practical implementation of concrete Ecodesign projects in production companies who have direct influence on product design has not received appropriate attention yet. Partner organisations from Member states (NL, PT) report having more experience with practical implementation of the Ecodesign concept, especially in certain industrial sectors.