In a challenging environment characterized by strong competition, companies have to be able to identify costumers’ needs and to offer some products that best fulfill their requirements while respecting the environment. For this purpose, every company, regardless its size or its activities’ field, should properly master its workflow, as the majority of defects that occur during the production phase are mainly related to the design phase.

Lean design is as an approach that aims to optimize the design of products so that they are easier to make in a Lean production environment, so, this article propounds an analysis of the fundaments of Lean design, moreover, it analyzes also design methods in relation with the environmental aspect, in order to emphasize the link that might exist between the approach and the design methods within the context of new product development while taking into account the environmental constraints which nowdays have become a key success factor for some companies.