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