Comparison of Ecological Design and Traditional Design of Textiles

By comparing ecological design with traditional design, we can further understand the role of ecological design in promoting sustainable development. There are differences between the ecological design and the traditional design. From the perspective of cost, traditional design from the concern of raw materials and manufacturing costs, to the development of the highest form - life cycle cost design, that is, the cost of the raw material, manufacturing, use and withdrawal of the entire life cycle of use, so that Minimize costs. Eco-design focuses on minimizing the sum of all internal and external costs over the entire product lifecycle. Through the evaluation of lifecycle costs of eco-design products, the eco-efficiency of products can be evaluated. According to the eco-efficiency of products, eco-design can be divided into four types: product improvement, product re-design, function innovation, and system innovation.

Product improvement is the application of pollution prevention and clean production concepts to adjust and improve existing products, while the product itself and technology are basically maintained.

Product redesign is a redesign of the structure and parts of existing products from the perspective of pollution prevention and cleaner production. The main means is to increase the use of non-toxic, non-waste materials, increase the degree of reuse of parts and raw materials, etc. The concept will remain the same, but the components of the product will be further or replaced with something else, such as reusable copier cartridges. The ecological design of many companies now belongs to this product redesign.

Functional or conceptual innovations are different from the first two products that remain unchanged after the ecological design. It innovates from the concept of products, and on the premise of providing the same functions, it changes the design concepts and ideas of products or services, such as using E-mail instead of paper to convey information.

System innovation, which involves the innovation of the entire product and service, requires changes in the relevant infrastructure and social concepts, such as the development of ecological materials to replace traditional building materials, new fiber materials.