Green-extension design—a new strategy to reduce the environmental pressure from the existing consumer electronics

Abstract

Existing electronic devices will quickly become e-waste when encountering technological iterations, which results in serious environmental and public health problems. Previous circular economy research has mainly focused on the development of new products with long life or recycling discarded products. This study firstly proposes the Green-Extension Design (GED) strategy for developing adaptable accessories that provide existing products with the ability to continue to work in a different context. Competitiveness was selected to evaluate the performance of GED, and three competitiveness components were derived through principal component analysis (PCA). Moreover, AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) was applied to define the weights of the three competitiveness components, and a GED model was established on the basis of production function. Furthermore, the calculation method for each competitiveness component was defined. The GED strategy is aimed at extending the life of existing products, as well as reducing resource waste and environmental pollution. The GED model based on competitiveness components can enable enterprises to design products of high competitiveness and obtain market share as a result.