Desirable and Sustainable: Consolidating strategies for developing sustainable products

<p>Society’s consumption, economic systems, and exponential population growth is creating more material waste than it can process. Mass production plays a large part in this unsustainable material consumption resulting in ecosystems collapsing. This thesis was done in partnership with SUPER Design Studios (SUPER), a registered design company founded by the author. The thesis was started in response to the need for everyone and everything to be waste-free while acknowledging that current sustainable alternatives were not bringing us closer to this goal. The objective of this thesis is to explore and propose a new Sustainable Product Development Strategy (SPDS) to create products that are effortlessly and enjoyably sustainable. The research starts with an analysis of current sustainable product development practices; followed by interviews with sustainability industry experts focusing on the opportunities, barriers and difficulties they find working within the field. The research found that the perceived issues with sustainable products are not inherent in the products but can be attributed to flawed approaches typically used in their development. To address this issue a new SPDS was identified, by combining successful product development strategies. The SPDS encompasses a focus on three key domains. Firstly, the development team needs to be empowered and encouraged in a sustainable mindset. Secondly, the project brief needs to put the customer and environmental needs at equal importance. Thirdly, a business mindset which motivates collaboration with external individuals including stakeholders, customers and other key disciplines, needs to be developed. The SPDS was trialled through validating and conceptualising a sustainable toothbrush product using a hybrid circular economy and subscription business model. This development encompassed strategies that utilised the SPDS methodology including design thinking, competitor analysis, a thematic analysis of secondary research, case studies, tree analysis, expert interviews and customer surveys. Overall a strong case was made for using the SPDS for the development of successful and sustainable products. The sustainable toothbrush concept is presented in the accompanying business case which proposes that SUPER goes ahead with further development and research to create the first of a new generation of sustainable products utilising the SPDS methodology. The hope is that applying the SPDS will create successful sustainable products that outcompete conventional products, leading to industry competitors following suit and in doing so replace the sustainable product industry.</p>

Desirable and Sustainable: Consolidating strategies for developing sustainable products

<p>Society’s consumption, economic systems, and exponential population growth is creating more material waste than it can process. Mass production plays a large part in this unsustainable material consumption resulting in ecosystems collapsing. This thesis was done in partnership with SUPER Design Studios (SUPER), a registered design company founded by the author. The thesis was started in response to the need for everyone and everything to be waste-free while acknowledging that current sustainable alternatives were not bringing us closer to this goal. The objective of this thesis is to explore and propose a new Sustainable Product Development Strategy (SPDS) to create products that are effortlessly and enjoyably sustainable. The research starts with an analysis of current sustainable product development practices; followed by interviews with sustainability industry experts focusing on the opportunities, barriers and difficulties they find working within the field. The research found that the perceived issues with sustainable products are not inherent in the products but can be attributed to flawed approaches typically used in their development. To address this issue a new SPDS was identified, by combining successful product development strategies. The SPDS encompasses a focus on three key domains. Firstly, the development team needs to be empowered and encouraged in a sustainable mindset. Secondly, the project brief needs to put the customer and environmental needs at equal importance. Thirdly, a business mindset which motivates collaboration with external individuals including stakeholders, customers and other key disciplines, needs to be developed. The SPDS was trialled through validating and conceptualising a sustainable toothbrush product using a hybrid circular economy and subscription business model. This development encompassed strategies that utilised the SPDS methodology including design thinking, competitor analysis, a thematic analysis of secondary research, case studies, tree analysis, expert interviews and customer surveys. Overall a strong case was made for using the SPDS for the development of successful and sustainable products. The sustainable toothbrush concept is presented in the accompanying business case which proposes that SUPER goes ahead with further development and research to create the first of a new generation of sustainable products utilising the SPDS methodology. The hope is that applying the SPDS will create successful sustainable products that outcompete conventional products, leading to industry competitors following suit and in doing so replace the sustainable product industry.</p>

An Approach for Identifying and Customizing the Effective Ecodesign Tools for Environmentally Sustainable Product Development

Producing environmentally benign products has now become one of the key challenges of companies across the globe. It can be achieved by utilizing the ecodesign tools in product development process for reducing the environmental impact of products during the design stage itself. Although, the ecodesign tools are available in abundance but there is a lack of studies that can help companies to identify suitable tools. A novel approach has been developed in this study which assists companies to identify and adopt effective ecodesign tools. In this study, three companies related to different product categories are included for testing the proposed approach. Results show that ‘Ecodesign Checklist,’ ‘Material, Energy, Toxicity (MET) Matrix’ and ‘Life Cycle Design Strategy (LiDS) Wheel’ are the three most effective ecodesign tools among the tested tools. Also, it is realized that if these three ecodesign tools are customized and integrated together in a specific sequence then it can be used by the designers, especially novice designers, as an ecodesign methodology. This methodology has the potential to guide designers in the form of a step by step approach during environmentally conscious product development.

Sustainable design: Aspects of sustainable product development

When NC State University recently hired me to lead a course concentration in sustainable design, I began to hone in on what sustainable product development and design translate to and its actionable applications. Sustainable product development and design of current and future consumer products and services are methods that create a proactive versus a reactive approach. The development of sustainable products and systems must start at the beginning phase of ideation and continue through the entire process to achieve multiple design purposes and duration with a designated end-of-life plan. In contrast, generally, products are developed with end of life and longevity as a secondary thought, and with recycling as a potential option. If the goal is the longevity of a product or service, one needs to look beyond recycling and more at the concept of development. A sustainable product development approach and design thinking are how to accomplish product longevity.

EXPLORING SUSTAINABLE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES FOR A CIRCULAR ECONOMY THROUGH MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Over the last years, academic literature has made significant progress on the development of key concepts, identifying circular product typologies, developing assessment methods, and exploring the synergies with manufacturing trends such as digitalisation or environmental management. Nevertheless, less attention has been paid on describing process model changes necessary for the implementation of circular product development. For this reason, this paper presents the circular Sustainable Product Development (cSPD) morphological field, aimed at providing implementation guidance to business and industry. It describes possible reconfigurations of the Sustainable Product Development (SPD) process model to further integrate circularity R-strategies, design scopes, design guidelines, inter- and intra-organisational actors and criteria for evaluation. With this framework, we intend to identify the most defining parameters in the process model and assign them a discrete number of categorical values so that different combinations explain the generation of prevalent circular product typologies in the manufacturing of durable goods.