Eco-designing Product Service Systems by degrading functions while maintaining user satisfaction

Industrialising products and/or services, considering the current environmental situation, requires changing paradigms to be efficient. The paradigm of proposing product-service systems instead of selling products is one of them. Moving further, this article shows that it can sometimes be possible to consider product and/or service degradation in order to relieve environmental burdens, while still maintaining user satisfaction. In this new paradigm, degradation will concern certain technical performances of the system. To succeed, the approach must simultaneously consider users expectations and environmental aspects. Environmental, economic and innovative approaches must be combined to adapt the products and services in an appropriate way. The product and service characteristics are negotiated with the users to cut down environmental impacts, while continuing to meet users' satisfaction. A case study of an eco-designed product-service system is presented. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.