「サステナブル・マニュファクチャリング」のロードマップとエコデザインの役割

抄録

Objective. To perform strategic R&D, the role of technological roadmap is very important. Road-mapping is not a “research” nor “development” itself. But, it is an indispensable effort in determining research target, proposing new research project, or funding research project. Especially, “global warming” is an urgent issue in recent world. And to announce a countermeasure for the issue, predicting future technological progress which can contribute to implement sustainable society and societal conditions, is really necessary. For this purpose, NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) was consigned an investigation “Technological Road-mapping of Sustainable Manufacturing Technology” from METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry). In the article, the author tries to introduce the effort of the road-mapping, and to relate sustainable manufacturing technologies mentioned in the roadmap to eco-design technologies.

Role of eco-design. Eco-design is considered as a same term as environmentally conscious design. It is true, but there are many design targets such as society, manufacturing systems, manufacturing processes and products. Eco-design technologies can focus on particular design target, but the effect of eco-design should be positive for wide area of our society. Eco-design should be an integrated technology which focuses on global effect of design, in the aspect of space and time. We also need to be aware of the limit and necessary condition of eco-design. Eco-design should be a technology which can contribute, not only reducing environmental impact of human activities, but also enhancing Quality-Of-Life and industrial competitiveness.

Sustainable manufacturing and eco-design. In the effort of road-mapping, the committee set 4 major area of sustainable manufacturing. Which are “Green Biotechnologies”, “Green Sustainable Chemistry”, “3R technologies” and “Design, Manufacturing and Fabrication technologies.” The author belonged to the working group which discussed the last area. As the result of the investigation, we subdivided the area to 4 major technological approaches that are “life-cycle thinking”, “minimizing”, “value enhancement” and “technology transfer.” We found that many of the eco-design related technologies are categorized to the technological approach which is called “life-cycle thinking.” As the result of the effort to relate eco-design technologies with sustainable manufacturing roadmap, it was clarified how eco-design technologies are located in the Japanese R&D strategy and how eco-design technologies should be progressed.