Sustainability Task Pane - Selected Items

When you have a fully defined assembly open and select one or more components in the FeatureManager or graphics area, the Task Pane displays the material and manufacturing details for the Selected Items.

Not available with SustainabilityXpress.

You can use the Selected Items view of the Sustainability Task Pane to assign materials and other values to components of an assembly. For example, you can use this pane to change the manufacturing process or region for a set of components.

To open this Task Pane:

  • With an assembly open, start at the main Sustainability Task Pane. In the graphics area or FeatureManager design tree, select one or more components of the assembly.
Use Shift + click to select multiple components. When you select multiple components, a value of *** indicates that the selected components have different values for the given parameter.
To save your work on this pane and return to the main pane, click in an empty region of the graphics area.

Selected Items

Lists the components you selected. Components are labeled as:

Included in calculations These components are considered when calculating the environmental impact of the assembly.
Excluded from calculations The calculation is performed without considering these components.

You can right-click a component and choose one of the following options:

Clear Selections Clears selections from the list, the graphics area, and FeatureManager design tree. Returns to the main Sustainability Task Pane.
Delete Removes the item from the Selected Items list.
Exclude from calculations Changes an included item to excluded.
Include in calculations Changes an excluded item to included.

Material

The materials that are available include Sustainability data. You can add a custom material to this list by linking it to a material with similar characteristics in the default SOLIDWORKS Materials database.
Class Sets the major class of material, for example, Steel or Plastics.
Name Sets the specific material.
Recycled content Percentage of material that has been recycled.

If the sustainability database contains primary (virgin), secondary (recycled), and trade mix (default mix of virgin and recycled content) values, the percentage of recycled content is shown. If these values are not available, the recycled content is 0%.

You can edit the recycled content value if you have more precise information. The Use Trade Mix button lets you return to the database defaults.
Weight Displays the component's weight using the selected material.
Find Similar Opens the Find Similar Material dialog box, where you can:
  • Compare similar materials to a baseline of environmental impacts for the selected material.
  • Select a new material to improve the environmental impact.
Set Material Assigns the current selected material to the active configuration of the model in the FeatureManager design tree. This material is then applied to all other aspects of the SOLIDWORKS software, such as mass property analysis, rendering, and so forth.

Manufacturing

Region
Sets the region of manufacture, for example, Asia.

Use the Region drop-down list or click the map to set the region.
Available regions are North America, Europe, Asia, Japan, South America, Australia, and India. Data is not available for all regions. Regions that contain data are highlighted when you hover over them.
Built to last Length of time the part will last.

The value of this field is used with the value of the Duration of use field in the Environmental Impact dashboard to calculate more accurate results.

Process Sets a manufacturing process. Availability depends on the selected material class.

The process you select populates the following fields with default energy usage values:

  • Electricity
  • Natural gas
  • Scrap rate (amount of the material discarded as scrap)

You can edit these fields to change usage amounts if you have more precise values for your manufacturing process. To return to defaults, reselect the process.

The totals below each field are based on the specified process and the weight of the material.

Use

Region Sets the region where the product is transported to and used, for example, Asia.

Select a region from the drop-down list or click a region in the map to set the region.

Transportation

Shows the default mode of transportation and distance traveled from the Manufacturing region to the Use region.
Train Boat
Truck Plane

To edit these values, click a transportation mode's button and type in the field that is enabled. When you add values for a transportation mode or modify the default mode, the field turns yellow and a Reset to Defaults button appears to let you discard your changes.

End of Life

Shows default percentages for end of life disposal of the part. Default values are based on the part's material in the sustainability database.
Recycled
Incinerated
Landfill

The total of the values always equals 100%. If you change the recycled or incinerated value, the landfill value updates. If you change the landfill value, the recycled value changes.

When you edit a value, the field turns yellow and a Reset to Defaults button appears to let you discard your changes.