Sustainable Product Design: Tools and Strategies: April 2011

Thursday, April 28, 2011

“When It Comes to LCA Tools, It’s the Wild West”

At least that’s the view taken by The Green to Gold Business Playbook authors, Daniel Esty and PJ Simmons. As noted in a recent article on the subject:

“Assessing environmental impacts of individual products or services (we’ll call them ‘products’ for short) is one of the most important things you can do in creating the diagnostic foundation that your company needs to pursue Eco-Advantage. Product-level impact analyses can help fine-tune your understanding of eco-related risks and opportunities, pinpoint specific areas for you to target for improvement, and help you evaluate complex options and trade-offs in product and process design.

But conducting product impact assessments is tricky. There are many competing methodologies and tools available for product “life cycle analysis/assessment” (LCA) -- from ‘LCA Light’ rapid assessment tools to costly software tools that can intimidate PhDs.”

Couple this with initiatives being launched by the engineering software community – and you’ve got lots of options to choose from. There are even free tools – like the open source LCA offering available from Earthster.

So what to do?

Probably the most important message here is that the need to assess the environmental impacts of our products, and of the product design and development process – is important, and only promises to become even more critical in the years ahead. So, if companies haven’t already begun to take steps to address this challenge, it’s time.

If you're an engineer or designer involved in product design, there are a number of options for you to consider. If you're looking to gain a basic understanding of what environmental impact assessment is all about, Sustainable Minds is a great place to start, and is suitable for any design professional, independent of the CAD tool they may be using. Autodesk Inventor professionals may want to explore EcoMaterials Advisor as a first step. Solidworks professionals may want to investigate Solidworks Sustainability Xpress, and PTC Pro/Engineer professionals may want to explore Windchill Product Analytics.

Each of these companies offers extensive educational resources, as well - from Sustainable Minds' free weekly introductory webinar and Autodesk's Sustainability Workshop to Solidworks' new Guide to Sustainability primer. For those students or professionals who have already embarked on the quest to better understand and apply sustainability principles in their work, it's worth mentioning that Solidworks recently launched a green design contest in honor of Earth Day, and Autodesk, too has a number of initiatives in place to reward innovative sustainable product design. So, the good news is that there are many resources available, and many companies eager to help you take those first steps towards embracing sustainability in your design efforts.

It’s all part of next-generation product design, a topic that is explored in greater detail in our upcoming research study, “Sustainability and the Product Lifecycle: A Report on the Opportunities, Challenges and Best Practices for Sustainable Product Design and Manufacturing.”

So - do you have what it takes to design sustainable products? Or wish you did? Tell us more. By taking this short survey, you’ll be helping to shed light on this very important – and often highly debated – topic. Whether you’re a sustainability expert or just beginning your journey – your feedback is invaluable.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Sustainability and Profitability: It’s Not Only Possible, It’s Essential

Want to Be More Profitable? More Innovative? Embrace Sustainability.

That’s the message that you’re going to be hearing more and more. It’s not a matter of juggling one at the expense of the other – sustainability is all about gaining greater efficiencies – from promoting greater productivity and energy efficiency to reducing excesses – use of less material where possible, and use of materials or processes that require less energy or resources, or don’t depend on the use of scarce materials. What’s important to point out is that sustainability – and the life cycle thinking that goes along with sustainable thinking – is, by definition, a driver of innovation and greater profitability.

Early corporate social responsibility initiatives, however, seemed to cloud this issue a bit. The emphasis was on social responsibility – with the sense that the cost of being socially responsible was something that corporations needed to take on, simply because it was “the right thing to do.” But, the economic part of the equation cannot be ignored. In short, in order for any sustainability initiative to be successful, the resulting products or services must be competitively priced and of comparable quality.

As noted in a recent article on the subject, Coca-Cola customer sustainability director Jake Backus puts the point simply:

“Consumers will not switch to a more sustainable product unless it is equally good or better than the current one, and equally priced.” Coke is [also] buying new machinery for its producers of plastic bottles so they can make them from plant-based material rather than oil-based matter. The plant-based plastic is likely to be cheaper in the long run. Efforts already made by Coca-Cola in 2009 achieved $100m worth of savings because it cut down on packaging.

At the same time, sustainability does require looking at the economic equation over the long run. The authors go on to describe another leading manufacturer’s sustainability journey – one that acknowledges the importance of looking beyond short-term financial gains:

Unilever wants to double its sales while reducing its environmental impact, something that chief executive Paul Polman has encouraged profit-focused shareholders to support. Polman railed against investors looking only at short-term growth and ignoring longer term sustainability issues. At the World Economic Forum last year, he made an impassioned plea to fellow business leaders to “ignore the demands of short-term shareholders and lead from the front on sustainability and climate change,” The Times reported last autumn.“

In short, manufacturers are beginning to embrace sustainability because it truly can be good for the planet and society, as well as good for the bottom line. And, indeed, must be good for the bottom line, if it is to represent a sustainable solution. For others, sustainability is driving innovation that contributes to top-line growth, as well.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Sustainability and the Design Engineer

In a recent article on the topic of greening the electronics supply chain – an astute observation was made by Kenneth Stanvick, senior vice president at DCA (Design Chain Associates). “The burden of compliance is on design,” says Stanvick.

As noted in an excerpt from the article:

“At the center of the green supply chain is the design engineer. Not many years ago, an engineer could spend time at the bench creating great products. The concerns were quality, market competition, and cost. A few new and profound responsibilities have fallen on the design engineer’s shoulders: green part selection as well as design for green manufacturing, for energy savings, for light packaging, for recycling, and for take-back. Plus, the target is always moving. A product that meets the long list of criteria this year will likely fall short five years from now.”

So, here’s the question – if the design engineer is being held accountable for sustainability – design for green manufacturing, for light packaging, recycling and more – what kind of support is being provided to this design engineer? Traditionally, engineers have been measured on their ability to create products that perform faster, can be made more cheaply, or that are – in some way – more innovative, and can therefore – command a greater market share, or attract new customers. Product performance – to a large extent – has been the primary focus of the design engineer – so, what has to change in order for the design engineer to change his or her focus to performance and sustainability?

One approach is to introduce metrics that reward design efforts that produce more energy efficient products, or that include new ways to dismantle and recycle. Another approach is to simply build selected green or sustainable attributes into the design specification: light-weight packaging, energy efficiency ratings, etc. But, as many sustainability experts have noted, if the responsibility for sustainability rests with the design engineer – then it is essential that key elements in the education and training of engineers must change.

The good news is that we are beginning to see some developments in this area – engineering programs at colleges and universities around the world are beginning to include more guidance regarding designing with environmental impact in mind. Moreover, design tools are beginning to evolve to assist in this effort as well. But, we are still very much in the early stages of both embracing sustainability as an objective, and providing engineers with the much needed support and education required to enable them to become more sustainability-focused.

Sustainable design – and all of the cultural change and infrastructure required to support it - is a journey, much like the quality movement that took place decades ago. We can’t expect it to happen overnight – but we can begin looking at the ways that we can support this effort – and especially, ways that we can support the engineers who will, ultimately, be the ones being held accountable for sustainable design.

Sustainable Product Design: Tools and Strategies