Designing products that can be recycled and save resources is becoming increasingly important from a sustainability perspective and is attracting more and more attention. Designers and product developers are therefore very interested in the sustainable design of their products, taking bio-based materials into account.

Under the aspect of so-called eco-design, material selection and construction have an influence on both the service life (e.g. reparability, content of toxic substances, energy efficiency during the active use phase) and the end of life (e.g. recyclability, reusability of components). So far, however, there is no central point of contact where all relevant information (such as technical parameters and ingredients, but also economic and ecological as well as social production aspects) is compiled and made available.

This is where the joint project comes in: The aim is to provide designers and product developers with comprehensive information that includes both technical and aesthetic aspects of the design and construction of sustainable products. This information is to be made available in a tool that is being developed as an extension of an existing database (TEb). The tool thus bundles the important information on usable and available bio-based materials, on their processing and on relevant sustainability aspects for designers and product creators and serves as a contact point for them for the conception of their products in the sense of eco-design.

The aim is to help eco-design products to better enter the market, in order to ultimately establish more sustainable products on the market.

• Project title: Bio2Design - Centralised material and sustainability information on novel bio-based semi-finished products and constructive elements for product and fashion design
• Sponsorship: Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture (BMEL)
• Funding: Agency for Renewable Resources (FNR)
• Project partners: raumprobe OHG, Deck 5, IfBB – Institut für Biokunststoffe und Bioverbundwerkstoffe der Hochschule Hannover, Hochschule Hannover - Fakultät III Medien, Information und Design, Universität Stuttgart (IABP), Abteilung Ganzheitliche Bilanzierung GaBi, Hochschule Trier – Fachbereich Gestaltung (HST)
• Project management: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andrea Siebert-Raths
• Project realization: Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Marco Neudecker, Nico Becker, M. Eng.
• Funding code: 2221NR039A
• Duration: 01.10.2022 – 30.09.2025

Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Marco Neudecker, marco.neudecker@hs-hannover.de
Nico Becker, M. Eng., nico.becker@hs-hannover.de