In the current climate, pressure from stakeholders is pushing European and global companies more than ever to take responsibility, account for and mitigate the impacts of their products. Climate change, resources and water scarcity are among a number of factors that increasingly drive the need for action within company operations across the entire product life cycle. Now, more than ever before, these issues directly affect product designers as well as Heads of Research, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability. The challenge of balancing performance and cost has become increasingly complex and now is the time to address this challenge before costs, climate change and stakeholder demand deem it too late. There is a plethora of questions which still remain largely unanswered. How do you incorporate environmental impact into existing processes when you are doing a design for the environment? As a product designer, how can you use complex tools such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to identify key impact areas and make decisions for yourself when needed, in a simple, cost effective manner? Further to that, how can you prioritise your decisions to effectively reduce your environmental impact?

Energy companies are rushing to develop unconventional sources of oil and gas trapped in carbon-rich shales and sands throughout the western United States and Canada. So far, government officials have shown little concern for the environmental consequences of this new fossil-fuel development boom. The most direct path to America's newest big oil and gas fields is U.S. Highway 12, two lanes of blacktop that unfold from Grays Harbor in Washington State and head east across the top of the country to Detroit. The 2,500-mile route has quickly become an essential supply line for the energy industry. With astonishing speed, U.S. oil companies, Canadian pipeline builders, and investors from all over the globe are spending huge sums in an economically promising and ecologically risky race to open the next era of hydrocarbon development. As domestic U.S. pools of conventional oil and gas dwindle, energy companies are increasingly turning to “unconventional”� fossil fuel reserves contained in the carbon rich-sands and deep shales of Canada, the Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountain West.