The Bruntland Commission Report defined sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." For a company to grow and secure its growth in the future, it needs to embed sustainability into all its products, services and processes.
Companies have long been looking for a way of quantifying sustainability and as a result Carbon Footprinting or Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) have become commonplace approaches adopted to identify the impact of a company and its activities in terms of the environment. These are both appropriate as indicators of sustainability and involve calculating the embodied carbon within a product or activity and using this as a metric throughout the entire life-cycle of a product, service or process. The basis of carbon footprinting and LCA stems from the idea of “Life-Cycle Thinking” which is, very simply, just looking at the life-cycle of a product, service or process from raw material extraction, through manufacture and distribution to ultimate disposal (see Figure 1).
For everything that is manufactured, it makes sense to look at sustainability from the very beginning of the process, and thus the concept of eco-design has evolved over time. Eco-design has been around for years, even Dieter Rams, chief designer at Braun in the 60’s and 70’s included environmental considerations in his 10 principles for good design . It can be described as a simple application of life-cycle thinking from a design perspective, and the benefits of doing so can include cost savings, legislative and regulatory compliance and customer satisfaction (or PR).
If a company wants to design a product with sustainability principles in mind, all it needs to do is to consider its eco-design and its life-cycle impacts and then minimise the biggest environmental impacts identified from this analysis. This is the first step to sustainable design.
"Persil recently looked at the sustainability of its products and its “eco-design” solution was to move the Small and Mighty liquid detergent to a 2x concentrated product. The benefits of this was that it now only takes ½ the water to make it, ½ the packaging volume in which to put it and ½ the number of lorries to deliver it . Simple really."
The Design Process
During product or packaging design, the environmental impact should be considered at every stage in the life-cycle, from the raw material extraction through to the end of the product’s life. Designers already do this when considering form or function; for example, a common design question is “how strong does packaging need to be to transport the product safely from the manufacturer to the consumer?”. It is therefore only a small step for businesses to start to consider the life-cycle from a wider sustainability point of view.
For example, when manufacturing a mobile phone and looking at the consumer behaviour, we can see that it is often only used for twelve to eighteen months before it is replaced. Therefore, one of its biggest impacts would be disposal (which can be minimized by designing the phone for ease of recyclability), so a mobile phone company might want to examine the amount and mixture of materials from which it is made to help minimize any impacts associated with its dismantling and disposal. During the ‘eco-design’ process the company would need to consider its manufacturing using as little (and as few) materials as possible. If the phone is compared to the mobile phone charger, the biggest environmental impact of this is almost definitely the amount of energy expended during its usage. It would therefore be sensible to ‘eco-design’ the phone charger by trying to optimise the energy efficiency during usage.
The Design Council recently estimated that 80 % of the cost of a product is set at the design stage , and therefore reducing the environmental impact of any product during the concept design is actually the most beneficial stage at which to make cost savings.
Eco-Design – Tools and TechniquesThere are a number of tools and techniques that can be used to design products more sustainably, and the right technique will depend on each company’s aims and objectives. For example, if a company is looking to reduce its carbon footprint, then it would make sense to look at “Design for embedded carbon” and review the material selection, or look at “Design for transport efficiency”, as the distribution of the product may well cause the biggest production of carbon. However, if a company has set targets for moving to 100% recyclable packaging, then it would need to look at “Design for recyclability” and move towards using mono materials that can easily be separated at point of disposal and recycled in most local authorities’ collection streams. Companies need to be careful, however, when transporting packaging or products abroad that the materials can be readily recycled at their destination .
A few of the techniques commonly used for minimizing environmental impact are outlined below.
Packaging eco-design techniques
Design for embedded carbon
- Look at the material used in the product or its packaging; for example, using Aluminum that is made from 60% recycled content can reduce the product’s embedded carbon by up to 90%
Design for recyclability
- Consider the recyclability of the materials from which the product or packaging is made
- Minimize the different types of materials used and, if possible, move to a single material product
- Look at how the materials are fixed together; for example, moving from screws to snap clips reduces the amount of time it takes to dismantle the product and they could also be made from the same material
Design for recycled content
- Most modern materials can include high levels of recycled content, for example cardboard boxes, metals and most plastics. An obvious and commonly-used example is the Innocent Drinks bottle, one of the first to be made from 100% recycled PET
- By asking suppliers for more recycled content in the materials purchased, costs can often be cut and money can be saved
Design for bio-degradability or compostability
- Does the consumer have the ability to compost? If so, moving to biodegradable packaging (which is suitable for home composting) can minimize the impact of the packaging at the end of its life
- However, care must be taken and the company needs to ensure that the packaging really will be composted. The EU Landfill Directive sets demanding targets to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill, one of the reasons being this type of material can increase methane and CO2 production by up to 20 times!
Design for transport efficiency
- Can the packaging be designed so that more products fit onto one pallet?
- Can the packaging be designed to interlock or stack in a different way to allow more products to stack together?
- Can shelf-ready packaging be introduced, thus eliminating the need for secondary and transit packaging and therefore fitting more products together in one pack?
Product eco-design techniques
Design for concentration
- If a product contains water, for example cleaning products, paints, coatings or drinks, can it be concentrated so the consumer can mix it with water at it’s destination? This means smaller (and cheaper) packaging, lower transport and storage costs and sometimes a longer lifespan of the product
Design for longevity
- Historically, some companies have been accused of planned obsolescence, which is deliberately planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so that it will become obsolete or nonfunctional after a certain period to ensure consumers re-purchase products
- Most designers are, however, now moving away from inbuilt obsolescence and looking at whether the product can be designed to last longer, for example a kitchen knife with 2 blades, so that, once the user cannot re-sharpen the first blade satisfactorily, the blade can be swapped and the blunt one sent back to the manufacturer to be professionally sharpened. Another example is that of a washing re-programmable machine, so that when a new washing powder is released that allows consumers to wash at a lower temperature, a new programme can be uploaded that sets the temperature to the new level
Design for energy efficiency
- Products that use energy are starting to be covered by new regulations (under the European Energy Using Products Directive ) which set out eco-design requirements, mostly to do with energy efficiency in use. Therefore, manufacturers are starting to have to document and reduce the energy used in standby, on and powered-down modes
All of the above can (and should) be considered during the design stage of any product or packaging. A good way to do this is to undertake a workshop, inviting representatives from all the different sections of the business, from marketers, production managers and environmental managers to the senior management to attend and contribute. Brainstorming with these different staff together, looking at product lines as specific examples and building short, medium and long term plans for improvements, quite often identifies projects where low cost / no cost changes can save vast amounts of money. It is worth remembering that, although external consultants can often add value by providing additional advice and expertise and by helping to facilitate the workshop discussion, no-one knows a company better than its own staff!Green Consumption
The green consumer market grew by 15% in 2008, whereas the overall figure for the consumer market growth was nearer 1.4%, with estimates on sustainable food up by 14%, sustainable textiles up 71%, green stationery up 49% and even eco-friendly funerals up by 18% , now is the ideal time for companies to grow by producing and marketing more sustainable products.Conclusions
Terms like eco-design, design for sustainability, carbon footprinting and life-cycle thinking all sound very technical and complex when first looking at the sustainability of a product, service or process. However, all these terms have roughly the same meaning and use similar approaches to identifying potential improvements in the design of “greener” products, packaging and services. In simple terms, they all suggest that the entire life-cycle of the product should be considered when looking at improving any product and this will usually include the added benefit of identifying where costs are highest and where easy financial savings can be made. After all sustainable design must also be about financial performance as well as social and environmental benefits.Case Study
Are first impressions always correct? Take the three examples below; which one could be considered to be the most (and which the least) sustainable product?
1) Water Hyacinth Coffin
2) Wood Veneer Coffin
3) Willow Coffin
Most people might initially think that either the Water Hyacinth or the Willow coffin is the best and the Wood Veneer the worst, but let us examine the life-cycle of each product.
1) Water Hyacinth. This coffin is made in India and, due to having a short lifespan, must be flown to the UK.
2) Wood Veneer. The wood for this coffin comes from Germany and is transported by lorry and ship. Due to the manufacturing process, however, each piece of wood can provide hundreds of veneer panels and therefore numerous different coffins.
3) Willow. The willow for this coffin is 100% natural and easily biodegradable in the ground. It is harvested and woven on the Somerset Levels and delivered by courier.
Therefore, the results seem to indicate that the Willow coffin would be the best, which may not be a surprise. However, the next best would be the Veneer coffin, as each slice of veneer is only 3mm thick, enabling many products to be manufactured from one tree. It may come as a surprise to many that the Water Hyacinth coffin probably has a far higher environmental impact due to it being manufactured in Indian, only having a short lifespan and therefore having to be flown to the UK in order to reach the client in a suitable condition. The impact of this form of transportation would no doubt make this the least sustainable of the three options. However without the analysis of impacts throughout the lifecycle, the consumer’s first impression and therefore their “green” choice may not have been the right one.
When considering a typical lamp’s life-cycle, the biggest environmental impact is most likely to be the energy it uses during its use phase, and therefore its “eco-design” might be to move to a renewable source of energy i.e. a wind-up mechanism.
JENNI DONATO
AEA
Tel: 0870 190 6718
Email: jenni.donato@aeat.co.uk
Web: www.aeat.co.uk
