Eco-ideation and eco-selection of R&D projects for complex systems.

Summary Eco-design becomes more and more recognized and well deployed in competitive mass-consumer goods producers (B-to-C). However the situation is not so advanced in B-to-B industries, in particular for complex industrial systems, characterized by a very long and uncertain life cycle, a high number of subsystems and components or strong interactions with their environment. The technological and regulatory constraints associated with these systems may slow down the ability to innovate, as reliable and long-term proven technologies are often favored. Nevertheless the need for eco-innovation is clearly present, however to eco-innovate on complex industrial systems is a hard task. R&D projects in complex systems industries are often driven by technological and not environmental considerations. These project need to be identified really early in the design process, with few information. On the other hand everybody agrees that environmental-oriented R&D projects are necessary, but the product complexity makes the initiation of an eco-innovation approach tricky, and only few R&D decision-makers are trained in eco-design or eco-innovation. That is why a simple and effective eco-innovation method is necessary, with little necessary preliminary environmental knowledge and stimulating the collaboration. Thus we propose in this paper such an intuitive eco-innovation process. It permits to identify at a strategic level and with limited time and resources eco-innovative R&D projects through a multidisciplinary working group.