Product development in industry is exposed to intensifying pressure in the context of environmental aspects both from legislative regulations as well as from the market. Governments are steadily increasing the standards and customers around the world are becoming more aware of ambient issues. Furthermore the prices for non-renewable resources are rising and even resource-shortages are to be expected. This demanding development can be converted into a valuable competitive advantage for companies embracing the challenge. Resources and emissions linked to a product’s lifecycle are subject to increasing considerations in buying decisions and have substantial influence on the success of innovations. In order to optimize both the usage of resources as well as emissions, engineers need a systematic framework to support them. The methodological approach presented in this paper aims at an early integration of resource and environmental requirements into the innovation process and consists of three phases: Target identification, target synthesis and target attainment, whereas the third phase is related closest to TRIZ and will be focused on. TRIZ tools are applied in the first two steps in relation to their individual strengths to support the generation of holistic solutions and to provide several concepts to select from.     «

Product development in industry is exposed to intensifying pressure in the context of environmental aspects both from legislative regulations as well as from the market. Governments are steadily increasing the standards and customers around the world are becoming more aware of ambient issues. Furthermore the prices for non-renewable resources are rising and even resource-shortages are to be expected. This demanding development can be converted into a valuable competitive advantage for companies...     »