We are delighted to announce that the “EcoDesign 2005: Forth International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing” will be held on December 12-14, 2005 in Tokyo, Japan. This symposium is organized by the Union of EcoDesigners, Japan, under the unified subtitle “Going Green” that is commonly used among IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment, CARE/Electronics Goes Green, and EcoDesign. The third symposium EcoDesign 2003 gathered over 300 participants and about 180 presentations from Europe, U.S.A., and Asia.

  The aim of EcoDesign is to construct the sustainable society by developing and deploying various environmentally conscious social systems, businesses, services, and products. While the movement of EcoDesign is successfully promoted by various legislative activities in many countries, innovative environmentally conscious businesses have not achieved majority yet, including, for instance, product & service system and servicization. In order to step forward, it is necessary to grasp the problem from a holistic viewpoint and to harmonize various enabling technologies under a clear strategy. EcoDesign 2005 includes a variety of topics such as environmentally conscious design, enabling technologies, business, social system, infrastructure and life cycle management.

  Especially, the 4th symposium focuses on two special themes; EcoDesign of social system and EcoDesign in Asia. The former reflects our recognition that the global environmental issues are getting worse although our EcoDesign activities. Therefore, we need integration of various EcoDesign actions into design of sustainable social system, in addition to individual EcoDesign activities. The latter, EcoDesign in Asia, comes from the fact that rapid industrialization, growing markets, and fast increasing living standards in Asia are becoming a pivot for the global sustainability and therefore one of the main concern of EcoDesign.

  The symposium welcomes presentations related to one or more aspects of these topics; practices, theories, strategies, and enabling technologies, from not only technical viewpoints, but also social, legal, economic, cultural viewpoints. As a result, EcoDesign 2005 hopes to encourage discussion and exchange information integrating these aspects among participants from various countries, various backgrounds, and various professions.