The demand for more stringent environmental regulation on product end‐of‐life and production processes is enhanced by customer concerns for environmental protection. This has increased the need for industry to address environmental issues in the product design process. The emergence of international standards for environmental management, such as the ISO 14000 series, has also created a strong incentive for manufacturers to promote environmentally conscious products and processes. Considerable progress has been made in design for the environment (DFE). However, there is still a need for a structured approach to DFE that addresses environmental concerns in a coherent way. This approach should also support an environmental management system (EMS). This paper describes an organised process to address the problem of integrating environmental concerns into an early product design process that is consistent with such international standards as ISO 14001 EMS. This approach may help to improve the environmental performance of a product and to support an organisation’s EMS.

Product design is a strategic activity in companies due to the intense competition, more sophisticated market needs, and diverse and rapid changes in technology. Effective engineering design can improve quality, reduce costs and lead-time, thereby better satisfying customer needs. The means to reduce cost, time to market and to improve product quality are more complicated. Product performance, quality, aesthetic and reliability, once considered as fundamental factors in developing new products, are now minimum requirements, as markets have grown more demanding for environmentally friendly products. Product designers are required to conceive faster innovative products of high quality at lower cost and environmentally sound in order to maintain competitiveness in today's global market. Over the last few years, a significant number of tools and methods have been developed in order to assist designers in addressing these issues. In line with this trend, this paper explores the following research question: how would nature solve conceptual product design issues? It maps the process of design in nature into the traditional product concept design, resulting in a creative process for conceptual product design. It is hoped that this insight may help designers gain further understanding of a creative product concept design process so that they comply with market needs.