It's Getting Easier to Design with 'Sustainability in Mind'

What if an engineer or designer could identify a whole assortment of safer, greener, more eco-friendly, cost-effective, energy-efficient design alternatives, materials, or sourcing options at the conceptual design stage? What if a simplified product life cycle assessment (LCA) that takes into account such aspects of product development as the cost, availability, and environmental impacts of raw materials, transportation, recycling and disposal options - could be performed at the front-end of the design process, instead of at the end of the process – after the fact? What if product design software was capable of capturing the data from such preliminary LCA assessments, allowing engineers and designers to make more informed decisions about potential environmental, social and economic impacts early in the design cycle when such decisions matter most?

The ability to perform such “what ifs” is what originally led Sustainable Minds’ CEO and co-founder Terry Swack to begin her pioneering work on integrating LCA into the design process in 2007. Less than a year later - in partnership with Autodesk – the company began working on the development of software to support this effort; and in October 2009, it officially announced the release of its flagship product, Sustainable Minds LCA 1.0, an early-stage LCA calculator and design evaluation tool. Since then, Sustainable Minds has launched several updates to its award-winning LCA software and has specifically targeted such critical disciplines as electro-mechanical design.

Several leading engineering software providers - including Siemens PLM, Dassault Systemes, and PTC have also begun to extend their reach beyond regulatory compliance with either sustainable product development tools of their own, or with offerings created through acquisitions or partnerships with others - from SolidWorks' Sustainability solution developed in partnership with PE International and PTC's acquisition of Planet Metrics to augment its InSight environmental compliance software, to the industry-specific sustainability solutions supported by Siemens PLM and Dassault Systemes’.

The result? Such capabilities promise to put key sustainability information into the hands of those involved in product design and development earlier in the design cycle – empowering them to make more informed decisions, more easily, and ultimately, enabling them to create more sustainable products and services at a competitive price. And that’s not only good for the environment, that’s good for business.

Not to be overlooked, this financial component is an essential element of the sustainability equation. Indeed, it’s worth noting here that fiscal responsibility is as much a part of sustainability as is the ability to measure and minimize negative environmental or social impact. The fact is a company must be able to accurately and effectively estimate the impact of its design decisions across the triple bottom line – taking into account environmental, social and economic concerns – in order to achieve a truly sustainable outcome. That’s why it is so important to be able to perform the kind of “what if” calculations that early stage LCA analysis affords – in order to conduct an effective cost/benefit analysis early in the design cycle and measure the impact of these early design decisions against key sustainability objectives and criteria.

It’s all part of next-generation product design, a topic that is explored in greater detail in the related research study, “Sustainability and the Product Lifecycle: A Report on the Opportunities, Challenges and Best Practices for Sustainable Product Design and Manufacturing.” So, stay tuned. We’ll be providing updates and an opportunity to participate in the research in the weeks and months ahead.

See also:

Sustainable Mind's CEO on Environmental Sustainability as a Product Innovation Driver

The EPA Turns Its Attention to Green Products

Have you heard? The Environmental Protection Agency wants to know how you feel it can best participate in and support green or sustainable product design and development. And now is the time to act – as the deadline for submissions is October 19^th, 2010.

As described in a recent federal notice, the Agency is currently soliciting individual stakeholder input to help define its role and develop a strategy that identifies how the Agency can make a meaningful contribution to the development, manufacture, designation, and use of sustainable products.

In particular, it is looking for stakeholders to respond to the following questions:

1. What do you see as the major policy and research challenges, opportunities, and trends impacting the development, manufacture, designation, and use of sustainable products?

2. What do you see as the EPA's overall role in addressing these challenges and opportunities?

3. In particular, how do you see the EPA's role in:

• Assembling information and databases.
• Identifying sustainability “hotspots” and setting product sustainability priorities.
• Evaluating the multiple impacts of products across their entire life cycle.
• Defining criteria for more sustainable products.
• Generating eco-labels and/or standards.
• Establishing the scientific foundation for these eco-labels and/or standards.
• Verifying that products meet standards.
• Stimulating the market.
• Developing end-of-life management systems (reuse, recycling, etc.).
• Measuring results, evaluating programs.

While critics may argue that the EPA’s involvement in this area may only create further roadblocks for manufacturers seeking to green their product lines, another way to view this move is that a standard means of measuring and verifying sustainability or “green” claims may be in the offing. This could be extremely valuable to organizations – especially suppliers – that are seeking to meet green mandates from manufacturers – and could well serve as a key first step in raising awareness of – and addressing some of the key challenges surrounding the design, development and manufacture of green products.

It’s all part of next-generation product design, a topic that is explored in greater detail in the related research study, “Sustainability and the Product Lifecycle: A Report on the Opportunities, Challenges and Best Practices for Sustainable Product Design and Manufacturing.” So, stay tuned. We’ll be providing updates and an opportunity to participate in the research in the weeks and months ahead.

To learn more, see:

“The EPA’s Role in Advancing Sustainable Products”

‘Sustainable Products’ to Get a Boost from the EPA