Product design is one of the most important sectors influencing global sustainability, as almost all the products consumed by people are outputs of the product development process. In particular, early design decisions can have a very significant impact on sustainability. These decisions not only relate to material and manufacturing choices but have a far-reaching effect on the product’s entire life cycle, including transportation, distribution, and end-of-life logistics. However, key challenges have to be overcome to enable eco-design methods to be applicable in early design stages. Lack of information models, semantic interoperability, methods to influence eco-design thinking in early stages, measurement science and uncertainty models in eco-decisions, and ability to balance business decisions and eco-design methodology are serious impediments to realizing sustainable products and services. Therefore, integrating downstream life cycle data into eco-design tools is essential to achieving true sustainable product development. Our review gives an overview of related research and positions early eco-design tools and decision support as a key strategy for the future. By merging sustainable thinking into traditional design methods, this review provides a framework for ongoing research, as well as encourages research collaborations among the various communities interested in sustainable product realization.

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Sustainable manufacturing requires simultaneous consideration of economic, environmental, and social implications associated with the production and delivery of goods. Fundamentally, sustainable manufacturing relies on descriptive metrics, advanced decisionmaking, and public policy for implementation, evaluation, and feedback. In this paper, recent research into concepts, methods, and tools for sustainable manufacturing is explored. At the manufacturing process level, engineering research has addressed issues related to planning, development, analysis, and improvement of processes. At a manufacturing systems level, engineering research has addressed challenges relating to facility operation, production planning and scheduling, and supply chain design. Though economically vital, manufacturing processes and systems have retained the negative image of being inefficient, polluting, and dangerous. Industrial and academic researchers are reimagining manufacturing as a source of innovation to meet society's future needs by undertaking strategic activities focused on sustainable processes and systems. Despite recent developments in decision making and process-and systems-level research, many challenges and opportunities remain. Several of these challenges relevant to manufacturing process and system research, development, implementation, and education are highlighted.

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Critical to the functionality of energy efficient lighting, off-shore wind turbines, and electric vehicles are rare earth (RE)-containing phosphors and magnets. With an increase in the market penetration of these clean energy technologies, demand for RE-containing components is expected to grow. However, the production of rare earth elements (REEs) has an adverse impact on the environment.Existing literature provides some information on the environmental impacts but often fails to give a detailed production pathway that can be modeled without preexisting knowledge of life cycle analysis (LCA) or a dedicated LCA software. In this study, life cycle inventories were compiled based on representative production pathways in China using facilitylevel energy/material data. Phosphors and magnets using REEs from monazite/bastnasite deposits in Bayan Obo as well as ion-adsorption clays from China's southern provinces are covered. Analysis of inventory data shows that electricity requirements and emissions to water have the highest contributions to the impact categories of global warming, acidification, and eutrophication. An interconnected Excel database system is also developed to help researchers and decision makers identify environmental hotspots and develop improvements in the production pathways.