Green LLC, the leading sustainability Design consultants, has just completed a comprehensive research study analyzing how companies create sustainable products. This study examined 560 products across 30 product categories from home decoration to transport and buildings. The study takes a broad view of the type of objects that you might encounter in your daily activities. The study builds on the excellent work done by Alastair Fuad-Luke in his book, Eco Design, the Sourcebook (Chronicle Books, 2004).
The studies objective was to identify the top techniques companies are using in each product segment. One of the outcomes of the study is an important understanding of the link between product type and the particular sustainability strategies that can be employed to create new sustainable value.
The top 5 techniques, across all product categories, that are being used to develop sustainable products are in order of importance;
1. Using renewable materials
2. Using recyclable materials
3. Reducing the amount of material
4. Using recycled materials
5. Creating multifunctional products
There are big differences in approach depending on the product category. For instance in Kitchen Appliances and Consumer Electronics, energy efficiency and management are far more important strategies while in Automobiles, lightweight construction and fuel efficiency are more important.
The study also sheds light on why so many companies focus on the wrong area to innovate. The basic misconception is that companies want to improve their sustainability through using renewable materials. This is because there are a few categories of products leading the sustainability drive, such as furniture and buildings, which are inherently made from materials from nature as opposed to the universe of consumer products that are essentially made from technical or manmade materials. It is easier in these categories to focus on finding better natural alternatives than it is in the tech sectors.
This is one of the first studies to analyze approaches to sustainability and it does a good job of building the body of knowledge required to design successful sustainability solutions.
The key to understanding what issue to address when designing new sustainable products is to do a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to identify what is causing the biggest environmental effect. Green LLC offers a very reasonable solution to get designers and new product developers going. Once that is understood it is a relatively easy task, using the Green Sustainability Strategies study, to apply the correct sustainability strategy to address the issue/s.
Do you know what the best approach is to creating sustainable value for your product?
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