if there’s one common thread that binds product designers, researchers, and engineers, it’s the passion to create products that have a positive impact on the world. More and more, sustainability is an important facet of the impact we’re all striving to create. Consumers, retailers, and brands are quickly realizing that the best solutions are ones that are good for businesses, good for people, and good for the planet – forward-thinking product design firms already know this. The benefits of a slight reduction in the environmental impact of a single product that sells in the millions will quickly surpass the benefit of all the recycling and composting we could ever do in our offices.

While there are a variety of approaches to creating more sustainable products that have been around for years (e.g. the Eco-Strategy Wheel and Design for X), life cycle analysis (LCA) is now recognized as the most complete approach to depict a product’s impact. As an assessment tool, LCA is excellent, and can provide high quality information for reporting as well as for planning project re-designs. But when you’re neck deep in the development process, the product itself is a moving target. There’s truth in the old adage that “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” The problem is, you can’t measure it if it doesn’t yet exist.

This article is the first of a three part series based on a collaboration between Carbon Design Group, a product design and development firm, and EcoShift, a sustainability and LCA consultancy. It looks at the complex challenges of sustainable product design, the current state of LCA practices and tools, and our vision of integrating sustainability throughout the development process. In this introductory piece, we’ll focus on why and how product development consultancies are stepping up to sustainability, and the significant challenges that arise from this.

Source:  www.carbondesign.com