Sustainable Product Design

Sustainable Product
Design
• “The design of objects that
aid the sustainability of the
systems in which they
operate.”
• The philosophy of designing
physical objects, to comply
with the principles of
economic, social and
ecological sustainability.
Sustainable Product Design
• Sustainable design is a kind of design meant to yield products that
are made only of renewable resources.
• Furthermore, products made through sustainable design are intended
not to seriously impact the environment either when they are being
created or when they are being used.
• These products are also often designed to allow the users to feel
more connected or to relate more closely to the natural environment.
• Sustainable design is also called "environmental design" and
"environmentally-conscious design." It is also sometimes called
"environmentally sustainable design" or "ESD."
• No matter what it is called, this kind of a design is just as much a
philosophy as it is a practice. It is based on economic, ecological, and
social principles regarding the importance of sustainability
How to Make Sustainable Design
• Make it less complex
• Simple, elegant designs can reduce material, weight, and manufacturing
processes. Simple designs usually also mean less material variety and can help
make a product more recyclable
• Make it more reuseful
• there is a big difference between usefulness and complexity. Only make the
product more desirable and interesting, it will also help reduce the number of
products headed for landfills. Multiuse products can reduce consumption and
increase convenience.
• Reduce material variety
• Designing as many aspects of the product as you can from the same material
makes recycling the product at its end of life easier, more efficient, and more
profitable
Continued….
• Avoid toxic or harmful materials and chemicals
• Materials like PVC, neoprene or polystyrene, and toxic chemicals and
additives like bisphenol A and formaldehyde should be avoided when
possible. Many of these materials have suitable non-toxic counterparts, like
copolyesters or bioplastics, and additives can be eliminated by choosing
materials wisely.
• Reduce size and weight
• Lightweight products can reduce carbon emissions and cost Weight can often
be saved by focusing on choosing lightweight materials, simplifying designs,
and eliminating unnecessary fasteners and components.
• Design for upgradeability
• In the electronics industry, the technology in a product can become obsolete
long before the design. ◦ Designing products that can be upgraded to keep up
with rapidly changing technical performance can save materials and money.
Continued…
• Create durable and high quality designs
• People want high quality products that will look and function beautifully long
after the competing product has died, and they’re willing to pay a little more
for that type of design. ◦ Designed properly, products can exceed the “throw
away” culture that dominates electronics today.
• Design for life after death
• Most products don’t last forever. Products designed to have secondary usages
after their primary function has lapsed can add value to the product, and may
fill a need that would be filled by another purchased product instead.
Principles of Sustainable Product Design
• Efficient use of raw materials (e.g. lightweight construction with
regenerative materials and reduction of waste)
• Resource efficient design (e.g. by optimization of energy and water
consumption or using less virgin materials)
• Durable design (e.g. stable construction and high longevity)
• High disposability (e.g. use of easily degradable materials)
• Efficient logistics (e.g. minimized packing and efficient transports)
• Service substitution (e.g. car-sharing and similar per capital resource
consumption reduction strategies achieved through redesigning
ownership structures)
Continued…
• Proper training and education for the workers (e.g. at the production
site)
• Observing and complying with human rights issues (e.g.
discrimination based on gender or race at production sites)
• Worker‘s health and safety (e.g. proper gear and equipment in toxic
environments)
• Consumer health & safety (e.g. informing the consumer via
Categorization of Sustainable Product
• Biological Products
• A biological product is one which is made of biological nutrients like organic
material such as wood and can easily be consumed by the microorganisms in
the soil or by other animals. So that it continues in the cycle of nature.
• Technical Products
• A technical product is one that is made with technological nutrients like
industrial materials such as metals or plastics and designed to go back into
the technical cycle, or the cycle of industry. It can continually enrich the
industry by being consumed as industrial “food.”
• During recycling, if the metals would be smelted only with like metals then
they will retain their high quality; likewise for plastics and thus continue to
circulate in the cycle of industry as technical nutrients.
Current Trend of Product Design
• Unfortunately, most of our today’s products are a hybrid of biological
and technological nutrients, and they end up as waste for the reason
that they are not properly designed to continue for high quality or we
can say “up- cycle” reuse after their useful lives.
• With the right design, all of the products and materials manufactured
by industry will safely feed these two metabolisms, providing
nourishment for something new.
Life Cycle Assessment
• An approach for monitoring the impact of sustainability along the entire
life cycle of a product or a system, from its creation until its end
• a tool for systematic evaluation of the environmental impact of a product
throughout each stage of its life cycle
• It is also called as life cycle analysis ,eco balance or cradle to grave analysis
• It considers all the environmental impact right from the extraction of raw
material to its final disposal and it also considers both qualitative and
quantitative aspects
• LCA ‘evaluates the types and quantities of product inputs such as energy,
raw materials, and water, and of product outputs, such as atmospheric
emissions, solid and water borne wastes, and end‐product’
Why LCA?
• To study the impact of our goods ,services and technology on our
environment
• To identify and implement ways of improving environment foot print
• To identify the environmental consequence of a decision or a
proposed change in the system under study
• It can help us during design stage of new product
Phases of LCA
• Goal and scope definition articulates the objectives, functional unit under
consideration, and regional and temporal boundaries of the assessment.
• Inventory analysis entails the quantification of energy, water, and material
resource requirements, and emissions to air, land, and water for all unit
processes within the life cycle.
• Impact assessment evaluates the human and ecological effects of the
resource consumption and emissions to the environment associated with
the life cycle.
• Interpretation of results includes an evaluation of the impact assessment
results within the context of the limitations, uncertainty, and assumptions
in the inventory data and scope.
Advantages and Disadvantages of LCA

Advantages Disadvantages
• LCA allows analysis of all steps • Completing a full life cycle analysis
within the life cycle of a product. on complicated products is much
easier said than done (the larger
• LCAs offer valuable quantitative your scope, the more complicated
comparisons. the LCA).
• LCAs can serve as an effective • Requires complete data which
marketing tool when used sometimes are very daunting.
appropriately. • LCAs depending on the specific
• LCAs are currently becoming a hot product or process, can be very
time intensive.
button issue in industry and
regulatory organizations alike. • Lack of Global Standards.
Cradle to Cradle
• A biomimetic approach to the design of products and systems that
models human industry on nature's processes, where materials are
viewed as nutrients circulating in healthy, safe metabolisms. The term
itself is a play on the popular corporate phrase "cradle to grave",
implying that the C2C model is sustainable and considerate of life and
future generations—from the birth, or "cradle", of one generation to
the next generation, versus from birth to death, or "grave", within the
same generation.
(Wikipedia)
Continued…..
• C2C suggests that industry must protect and enrich ecosystems and
nature's biological metabolism while also maintaining a safe,
productive technical metabolism for the high-quality use and
circulation of organic and technical nutrients. It is a holistic,
economic, industrial and social framework that seeks to create
systems that are not only efficient but also essentially waste free.
(Wikipedia)
Reference
• https://www.slideshare.net/awaisahmed54379/sustainable-product-
design
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle-to-cradle_design
• https://www.slideshare.net/agnihotriom1992/life-cycle-assessment-
46688405