A Research Roadmap for Sustainable Design Methods and Tools

Faludi, Jeremy; Hoffenson, Steven; Kwok, Sze Yin; Saidani, Michael; Hallstedt, Sophie I.; Telenko, Cassandra; Martinez, Victor

doi:10.3390/su12198174

Cited by 48 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…In practice, it is key to: (i) further experimenting these c-indicators and associated tools with industrial practitioners such as designers, engineers, or managers (and document and report on these case studies, in order to disseminate good practices); (ii) connect the circularity performance of a given product with the performance of the company that develops this product (n.b. the Circular Transition Indicators by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development or Circulytics by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation are two company-level circular economy measurement tools that have been developed lately); (iii) integrate such c-indicators with the design tools that are used more broadly during the design process, such as computer-aided design programs making the detailed design phase more efficient [19]; lastly, (iv) link and combined complementary design methods and tools to measure the impact on sustainability as part of the design method [39], and in fine to develop better design concepts and product solutions in terms of circularity and sustainability performance [23,[40][41][42].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design for Product Circularity: Circular Economy Indicators With Tools Mapped Along the Engineering Design Process

Saidani

Kim

2021

Volume 5: 26th Design for Manufacturing and the Life Cycle Conference (DFMLC)

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Monitoring the circularity potential of products and materials is key to ensure environmental savings and economic profitability of circular economy loops, such as reuse, remanufacturing, or recycling. The choices and decisions made during the product design phase have a major influence and impact on the circularity performance of products. While numerous indicators and tools have been recently developed to assess, manage, and accelerate the transition to a more circular economy, their application and usability during the early design phases of products are often overlooked. Based on a screening of several tens of circular economy indicators, the present research work identified twelve product-centric circularity indicators, each of them coming with a computational tool, to be deployed during the design process in order to improve the circularity potential of products. To help designers and engineers selecting the appropriate solution, these circularity indicators and tools are positioned on a generic five-step design process, namely: requirements definition, conceptual design, detailed design, designs comparison, product monitoring and communication. Concrete examples are given on how these indicators and their assessment framework can support the design of more circular products. Current shortcomings of available approaches are finally highlighted and discussed (such as the lack of c-indicators for the detailed design phase or linkage with computer-aided design software) for an augmented integration of such promising circularity indicators and their associated tools within the design and development process of products.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design for Product Circularity: Circular Economy Indicators With Tools Mapped Along the Engineering Design Process

Saidani

Kim

2021

Volume 5: 26th Design for Manufacturing and the Life Cycle Conference (DFMLC)

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“…Ceschin, F., & Gaziulusoy, I. (2016); Faludi et al (2020) V10. Capabilities for sustainable design and product development.…”

Section: Variablementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The approaches include simplified lifecycle assessments, and sustainabilityadaptations of quality-function deployment, concept-selection matrices, technology readiness-levels, material selection guides, and sustainability compliance indices, to mention a few (Watz & Hallstedt, 2018). Unfortunately, the shift from business as usual is often too slow, and the strategies, methods and tools for sustainable design are seldom implemented by companies (Faludi et al, 2020). In addition, to realize a sustainability transition, product development needs to adopt a systemic (Bengtsson et al, 2016) and strategic (Baumgartner, 2016) sustainability perspective instead of continuing in the paradigm of incremental improvement and efficiency of sustainability aspects (Dyllick and Rost, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Systemic Forces That Influence Sustainable Design Transitions

2021

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In this research some systemic forces to sustainable design are described and mapped out, along with key areas, dimensions and stakeholders. These results are visualized in a causal loop diagram (CLD), which was the outcome of a group model building approach supported by a literature review. Within the proposed system model, represented by the system-level variables and their relationships within the CLD, some potential leverage points that can help make product design better contribute to sustainability are identified and described. These can be found in the balancing and reinforcing feedback loops of the CLD as well as the mapping to societal dimensions of sustainability transitions and stakeholder groups. Among the stakeholder groups, business managers, scientific researchers and engineering designers can be tied to the design community. Future research is proposed to build on these initial results to deepen the knowledge about the systemic drivers and barriers and leverage the contribution of design practice to sustainable development.

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“…As part of these efforts, several concepts, methods and tools were developed, such as eco-design [7], design for environment (DfE) [8], and Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) [9]. Amounting to over 600 unique tools and methods, these have in recent studies [10,11] still been deemed insufficient when it comes to facilitating sustainability integration in existing company processes and a resulting adoption by industry as a whole.…”

Section: Sustainability In Product Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Sustainability Work in Product Development Organizations: An Empirical Study of Three Sweden-Based Companies

Mesquita

Missimer

2021

Sustainability

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Companies responsible for product development (PD) and manufacturing play an important role in supporting society in achieving sustainability, and yet they do not always include full sustainability considerations in PD decisions. The social dimension of sustainability has been largely neglected in the PD field and there is very little empirical evidence of social sustainability implementation in general. The aim of this paper is to investigate how social sustainability is currently included in PD organizations and what their motivations are to do so. Results from a comparative case study approach with three organizations include rich descriptions across four dimensions: The scope of the work and their view of interdependencies with other social systems, their definition of social sustainability and the issues they work with, what guides strategic decisions, and how this internal work is structured. The results reveal that the three product development organizations are heterogenous in their approaches to social sustainability and that the more advanced approach shows a better understanding of the complexity of social sustainability and a broader perspective of its interdependencies, which goes hand-in-hand with a way of organizing that overcomes traditional hierarchies and allows for more collaborative and strategic work in this area. This systems perspective also drives what issues are included in an organization’s work; scope and definition of social sustainability become more encompassing and aligned. Finally, our study shows that social sustainability impacts connected to products’ lifecycles, when addressed, are done so by functions outside design activities, as opposed to product developers. A greater understanding of how companies currently approach social sustainability and what challenges they might face in integrating it in organizational and design related practices has been called for; our paper contributes to this but acknowledges that more work is needed.

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A Research Roadmap for Sustainable Design Methods and Tools

Cited by 48 publications

References 53 publications

Design for Product Circularity: Circular Economy Indicators With Tools Mapped Along the Engineering Design Process

Design for Product Circularity: Circular Economy Indicators With Tools Mapped Along the Engineering Design Process

Exploring Systemic Forces That Influence Sustainable Design Transitions

Social Sustainability Work in Product Development Organizations: An Empirical Study of Three Sweden-Based Companies

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