How to Incorporate Sustainability into Product Design

It is estimated that over 80% of a product’s environmental impacts are determined during its design phase. So it’s no surprise that for a growing number of companies, product design and product stewardship are emerging as key material topics. In recent materiality assessments and stakeholder engagement work SustainabilityNext has conducted for our clients, issues such as the amount of recycled content in the input materials, the carbon footprint of manufacturing, and how much of the product ends up in the landfill have risen to the top of stakeholder concerns. 

The concept of sustainable design has its roots in the 1970s when design pioneers like Buckminster Fuller and Victor Papanek began thinking about how design could reduce the ecological impact of goods and services. Since then, both the approach and the nomenclature have evolved. In recent years, we have seen momentum behind the concepts of product stewardship and extended producer responsibility, which have further inspired businesses to explore how their products could be more sustainably designed. 

As our clients have embarked on their sustainable design journeys, they often struggle with where to begin. To help provide a starting point, we’ve gathered information about three of the most prominent frameworks below:

• Design for Environment

• Design for Sustainability

• Circular Economy

Design for Environment (DfE) began as an EPA program in 1992 that encouraged companies to prevent pollution by bringing a life-cycle mentality to product design. It is now a widely-used set of design principles, including Life Cycle Analysis, whose benefits include cost savings, reduced business and environmental risks, expanded business opportunities and consumer appeal. Among the companies that have used this approach are Starbucks, Hewlett Packard, IBM and Philips. The EPA now has a related program called Safer Choice, which helps consumers and businesses find products and chemicals that are safer for the environment. 

Design for Sustainability (D4S) builds on DfE by emphasizing social and economic impacts in addition to environmental concerns. The United Nations Environment Programme and researchers at Delft University of Technology produced helpful guidance about how companies can incorporate D4S principles into their work. 

The idea of a Circular Economy grew out of a collaborative effort spearheaded by Ellen MacArthur, the British woman who broke the world record for sailing around the world solo in 2005. The key principles from this approach guide companies to a more regenerative, positive approach to product development compared to traditional methods, as illustrated in the figure below. 

Companies using this approach have invented agricultural methods that reduce water use by 70%, created edible food packaging, and made mattresses recyclable. A Circular Economy design toolkit can be found here. 

In reviewing the three frameworks, we’ve found these common questions to ask as you create a sustainable design checklist for your company’s products and processes. 

Could our product… 

Operationalizing sustainable design concepts can get tricky. During work with our clients who are tackling this issue, we’ve observed some key lessons to keep in mind: 

• Creating a highly collaborative product development team is critical to the success of incorporating sustainability into the design process. 

• CSR/sustainability staff should emphasize that it is not sustainability over other factors, but in consideration with other factors as products are developed.

• Leverage existing product development infrastructure and governance. Add sustainability criteria as a workflow like any other workflow and as early in the R&D process as possible.

At SustainabilityNext we have more resources and insights to share on this topic. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like to learn more.