The work presented in this paper is part of a collaborative research project looking for the development of ergoecology as a framework for the design and improvement of innovative products and services. Defined since 1997 by García-Acosta, Saravia & Romero as a scientific and technological discipline, the Ergoecology –from a systemic focus– takes care of studying the human-being and its relationships with the environment –through its activities (work)– to establish, analyse, reduce, prevent, control and rectify the impacts (positives and negatives) that derive from such a relationship (García-Acosta, Saravia, Romero & Lange, 2014), creating a direct interdisciplinary connection between the area of ergonomics and the broad field of ecology. Looking forward to a dynamic equilibrium and an environmental balance, Ergoecology proposes as postulates 'eco-efficiency' and 'eco-productivity'. However, the last one has not been sufficiently developed in a way to be applied. This work puts forward the concept of eco-productivity and some guidelines for its application from the Ergoecology perspective. The methodology was a systematic literature review with analytical approach using Nvivo 11. The basis for the review was the Ergoecological Fundamentals, which include: principles and postulates (eco-productivity, eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness (García et al, 2014) as well as some notions (macroconcepts) regarding design, product development, innovation, sustainability, ecology, and ergonomics was built, in order to identify the keywords to build the search equations. After reviewing almost 850 documents from different databases we found 15 that mentioned at least two of the three postulates of ergoecology. Only five of them talked about eco-productivity (Barbiroli, 2006; García-Acosta, Saravia & Riba, 2012; Tatcher, García-Acosta, & Lange, 2013; Lange, Tatcher, & García-Acosta, 2014; García-Acosta, Saravia, Romero & Lange, 2014). Barbiroli proposed the need of achieve eco-effectiveness in order to increase productivity of resources. This relationship is based on restitution and regeneration of resources which could increment the availability of materials and supplies. Instead, ergoecology, defined eco-productivity as the ability of systems to transform energy, matter (resources) and information into products or services, without generating negative impacts on other systems that interact with them. In that sense, this implies in the first place, the rationalization of the impact variables to control the productive system and always tending to the operational equilibrium (García-Acosta, Saravia, Romero & Lange, 2014), and secondly the application of environmentally friendly innovative technological changes to develop environmentally acceptable products and processes. In order to achieve the eco-productivity, some guidelines for its application are proposed from Ergoecology. These guidelines includes three moments of productive processes: The use of resources (input), resource processing (processes) and products obtained and use (output); adopting the axioms of Ergoecology (energy, matter and information) as eco-productivity estimating variables. We may conclude, that the concepts of eco-productivity along with the systemic eco-efficiency can become strategic indicators to assess the interdependencies between artefact–human systems or sociotechnical systems and natural systems. The eco-productivity guidelines can contribute to decision-making in the different phases of production processes to ensure the long-term sustainability of organizations.
