"Ecomatériauthèques": visibility on the environmental impact of materials to help decision-making of designers?

There exists few tools to help the designer to advise or choose a material, to obtain precise information about its impacts on the environment. The question is to know how the existing tools can answer the questions of the designers, if they satisfy their expectancies and if they are useful to help him to have a broader view of the environmental impacts of the product that is designed. Two types of eco-materials library were identified: the tangible material's libraries and the databases. Initially, these various tools and the specific information that they provide on the environmental aspects will be defined. Within this framework, a description of 3 French materials library and 2 data bases will introduce a comparison of the data collected on 2 types of materials, the polypropylene and aluminum. The results of this work will be presented within a workshop with designers. The outcome of the workshop will orient the reflection on the level of information that is necessary for the designer in his work The final objective is to answer, with the designers, to the following questions: Are the existing tools sufficient? Can one single tool answer the totality of expectancies? Is it necessary to use a series of tools to answer expectancies? In this case, do the designers need a guide to know the type of information that is provided by the different tools in order to facilitate their approach? Is a new tool necessary? Which specific form must this new tool have? Which type of environmental contents and information does it have to propose in order to be used in varied contexts and to answer the needs of designers without being too far from scientific rigor?