Sustainable product development (SPD) requires that product design achieve minimal or zero environmental impact, while satisfying other design criteria such as functionality, quality, desirable features, and acceptable cost and time to market. Therefore, environmental evaluations must be incorporated into the design stage. This research is aimed at the development of a new approach to lifecycle design and evaluation. This paper proposes a framework to optimize functional, environmental, and economic (FEE) performance towards sustainable design. Based on the three dimensions of FEE, a systematic lifecycle design process model is proposed, which consists of: the three FEE requirements; two design objects (physical structure and lifecycle structure); and, the FEE evaluation streams of LCQ (functional lifecycle quality), LCA (environmental lifecycle assessment) and LCC (economic lifecycle costing). A new concept, called process-based analysis (PBA) is defined, and used as the base for FEE evaluations.