Colloquia

Samenvatting

Around 80 percent of environmental impacts associated with products result from design decisions. Since the 2000’s one could observe a significant effort in the development of concepts, models, tools and methods aiming to include sustainability concerns in the product, service and(or) business development. Most of these models are focused on the environmental side of sustainability, but true sustainability looks at broader issues that also address society and commerce. All three aspects of sustainability must be considered as an integral part of a sustainable design. Successful sustainable product development has the potential to help companies in minimising the impact throughout the products' lifecycle, as well as to gain and maintain competitive advantage. In this paper, a sustainable design method is presented that is usable at the early stages of designing, includes all three pillars of sustainability, life cycle design principles, guides the designer in trade offs, and is specific for the development of a new product. By indicating the flow of designing and relevant aspects and goals for each step, the designer gains an overview of important variables. Providing relations between variables and the weight of the relation allows decision making and informed trade-offs. The proposed model is set up to be expanded and added onto through experience and gaining of knowledge. Project aspects shown are customizable depending on the project and organisation. Through time a complete model will be approached and the amount of changes will decrease. A prototype is used in a case study at Robuust Amsterdam and the model is elaborated on based on the learnings.