Sustainable product engineering is becoming increasingly important. This includes the development of environmentally friendly products and the design for recycling. In this paper a holistic method for the assessment of solution alternatives is presented, in which the stakeholder perspectives along the generic product lifecycle are taken into account. Finally, a new visualization is presented. By visualizing the results in the integrated sustainability triangle, decision-makers in product development can holistically assess the sustainability of the solution alternatives.

This paper explores carpet, an intergenerational product, that lives and ages with its users. An ethnographic study was conducted through participant observation and in-depth interviews to understand why carpet matters in Turkish homes. Exploring material culture of carpet unfolds its meaning as a signifier of culture in second-order semiological systems. Study finds carpet has socializing traits, is the maker of home, needs maintenance and can be an artwork or object. Examining a product's importance and emotional durability can enable new understandings of product meaning and sustainability.

Sustainability challenges drive innovation, yet few studies attend to the role of design to realise innovation. This paper report from a full day workshop and panel discussion with 100 delegates at the ICED 2021 conference. Industrialists, academics and societal representatives discussed how to deal with five conflicting themes. It is argued that innovation actors will need to take a joint action to the problem, industrial value chains need to co-innovate and that long term challenging targets are powerful metrics to drive transformation.

This paper proposes that safety footwear manufacture shifts towards a sustainable Product-Service System (PSS). The PSS consists of seven stages from identification of requirements through to disposal or replacement. Through this, designers and manufacturers can realise safety footwear that is customised to end user sizing, function, industry and aesthetic requirements. For end users, this PSS leads to the creation of more comfortable and practicable footwear, addressing the underlying level of acceptance of uncomfortable safety footwear, reducing waste and providing sex specific offerings.

Closing the material loop is fundamental to circular economy (CE). However, significant quantities of resources are currently landfilled. Today, companies realise the importance of take-back for CE but face several barriers in implementing it, lack of knowledge, being one such barrier. To address this, a proposal is presented for the design of a configurator to support companies evaluate different approaches, as well as opportunities and challenges for designing and implementing take-back. The paper presents a conceptual framework for the configurator, based on a systematic literature review.

Current CE approach, and its many definitions, does not explicitly consider the interconnectedness of the biological and technological cycle. This paper uses state-of-the-art to articulate nuances of the CE to encourage a more comprehensive understanding of the concept from a perspective of both cycles. The results address that acknowledged sustainably driven shifts of resources between cycles are neglected in most state-of-the-art. Therefore, the Dual Circularity (DC) definition is proposed and further evaluated by three examples.

There is a mismatch between the way public services are designed, and the chronic dilemmas of the welfare state. Through two case studies we show how tool-dependent, instrumental and systems-oriented approaches fall short in tackling these dilemmas, and how the there is a need for a new, relational turn in design. Relational design takes into account interdependencies and dynamic situation of society, and calls for a new design vocabulary that discusses and approaches the relational aspects and opens up for a more situational and sensitive design agency.

Global collaboration and mutual learning in design are put forth as means to address the UN SDGs. This paper draws upon experiences in the Design Society's AFRICA-DESIGN initiative to build a network of design academics and practitioners based in Africa with a focus on design for sustainable development. We identify education and social sustainability as particular opportunities and challenges, highlighting the critical element of mutual learning in the collaboration process.

Geographic distance between supply and demand reduces spatial accessibility. Vehicles have been contributing to improved spatial accessibility by offering transport services for people and goods. From traditional trucks to mobile health clinics, vehicles can offer a wide range of functionalities on wheels. To develop context-specific vehicles-based services, we propose a novel engineering framework based on a supply chain perspective. Requirements are derived from supply chain stakeholders and translated into vehicle-based services and vehicle components.

The negative social and environmental impacts of the fashion industry refer to a global industry, with its ubiquitous supply chains driven by big brands that determine what to produce, where to produce, and at what prices to sell. Do we want to continue to keep fashion as a beautiful artifact? If so, we need to consider how resources are deployed. Accelerating climate change is looming, portending an uncertain and damaging future. Can fashion be sustainable? Why is sustainability in fashion seen as an oxymoron? Can a return to slow fashion accompany digital towards a sustainable future?

Integrated Natural Resource Conservation and Development (INRCD) Projects promote community economic development consistent with natural resource conservation. Such projects are studied analytically as system design optimization problems comprising engineering, economic, and social considerations. Modeling social benefits as objectives or constraints requires proper quantification. From the extant literature, we decompose the social benefits concept into quantifiable INRCD attributes and point to further quantification efforts needed to capture the system design's impact on local communities.

By transforming from a manufacturer into a PSS provider, the business model of a company changes. In particular with service-oriented business models, the importance of tangible products alters. Instead of selling products, PSS providers need product fleets that enable the provision of services. If the manufacturer of the product and the provider of the PSS fleet are identical, the products can be designed specifically for the PSS. This paper introduces a framework that supports the design of modular PSS fleets so that the product architecture is optimised for the requirements of the fleet.

This paper proposes an approach for capital goods manufacturers to design Product-Service System (PSS) pilot projects by selecting appropriate products and customers. The authors conducted a single-case empirical study as a part of an ongoing action research project to maximise the learnings from a pilot project while minimising expenditure in extensive trial and error PSS solution testing. Two sets of criteria were elicited for product and customer selection, respectively, followed by a description of the ideal product and customer attributes for each of the three most common PSS archetypes.

Although Life Cycle Sustainability Assessments (LCSA) are important in evaluating the sustainability of complex products and services, there is no sufficient support for engineers performing LCSA. The concept of an Engineering Graph focuses on the relations of data within engineering. It provides a model that leverages existing data in engineering and extendibility to include specialized databases and open and public data from the semantic web. This paper proposes a concept of how Engineering Graphs can be used to address the issues of LCSA and support engineers.

The sustainability of rigid packaging can be increased by using biocomposites in packaging. Existing frameworks have some limitations such as are made to assess a few aspects, conventional packaging parameters are considered, etc. Biocomposite has a slightly different scenario at various life cycle stages, like the end-of-life cycle process. To assess the sustainability of biocomposite rigid packaging, we must consider parameters related to the biocomposite-based rigid packaging materials life cycle. These are categorised into different aspects of sustainability and life cycle phases.

Design scholarship has long roots in tackling wicked problems and sustainability, yet less is known about how professional designers interact with sustainability issues in practice. Based on interviews with 104 designers in 101 organizations in Finland, this study compares designer perceptions on the role of design in advancing sustainability. We identify six common roles, each with various foci on different design maturity levels in organisations. The findings support managers and designers in understanding which capabilities might be needed in advancing the role of design and sustainability.

This work aims to study the evolution of the “Human and planet balance tool” as part of Prosperity Thinking. Prosperity Thinking is a sustainable design methodology that takes into account human and planet means. Through a literature review on sustainable design, we noticed that there is a lack of methods that take into account the problem definition stage. We developed a “Human and planet balance tool” which helps framing sustainable design challenges. Results show that designers, innovators, and changemakers have an interest in a methodology to analyze and address systemic challenges.

Academics and practitioners have shown a growing interest in automobile reverse supply chain (RSC) management as a result of the rise of circular economy and the development of Industry 4.0. Accurate quantity prediction enhances the efficiency of all decision levels in automobile RSC, not only the recovery of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs). Therefore, a comprehensive state-of-the-art review, evaluating ELVs quantity forecasting methodologies and summarizing the main variables influencing forecasting outcomes, is conducted to throw shed light on future research directions.

This work focuses on exploring how to transform the PSS strategy through conceptual design and prototyping to a way in which different stakeholders in the case car company – SAIC Motor – can experience and give feedback on the PSS strategy, analyze the impact of the PSS strategy on the process of customized digital service design in a traditional Chinese car company. Also, the work discusses how to increase the service value for different stakeholders in the overall PSS system.

Corporate climate action is critical in supporting the transition towards a low-carbon economy. This paper explores what design practices have been adopted by manufacturing companies that have committed to science-based emission reduction targets and are making progress towards those targets. We contribute to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence of circular economy (CE) actions related to product design supporting firms in reaching their emission reduction targets, contributing to the calls for more research showing evidence between CE adoption and emissions reduction.