Co-Creating a Framework to Integrate Sustainable Design into Product Development Practice: Case Study at an Engineering Consultancy Firm
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Motivation and Aims
- An “activity” is something practitioners physically do (e.g., calculate, draw, etc.);
- A “mindset” is something practitioners mentally consider (e.g., a goal, paradigm, etc.);
- A “tool” is an object (physical or software) used to perform an activity and/or spur thought along a mindset;
- A “method” is an ordered set of activities with accompanying mindsets;
- A “strategy” is a mindset (or collection thereof) that may be accompanied by specific activities, or may be considered during normal design activities (e.g., brainstorming, cost estimation, etc.);
- A “practice” generically refers to any and all design methods, activities, mindsets, tools, or combinations thereof;
- A “practitioner” refers to designers, engineers, managers, or other stakeholders involved in industry product development decision-making and execution.
1.2. Background and Related Work
1.3. Data-Collection Procedures
- The iterative, human-centered, and collaborative co-creation process of a sustainable design framework tailored to employees’ needs and the PD context;
- A set of qualitative considerations, identified through extensive user research, which influence the adoption of sustainable design;
- A co-created, modular framework of practices that satisfies these considerations and aids the systematic integration of sustainable design into PD workflows;
- Insights and feedback related to the framework’s deployment in practice, obtained through our longitudinal engagement.
- RQ1–Receptivity to integration: What factors drive the company’s receptivity to incorporating various SDMTs into its PD practice?
- RQ2–Valued tools: What do practitioners value in existing SDMTs?
- RQ3–Co-creation: How does the process of co-creating a customized sustainable design framework enable its integration into the company’s PD practice?
- RQ4–Long-term impacts: How does the framework support continued consideration of sustainability in the company’s PD practice over time, or if it fails to do so, why?
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Participants and Study Context
2.2. Data-Collection Procedures
2.2.1. Interviews and Focus Groups
2.2.2. Project Documentation
2.2.3. Participatory Development of the Sustainable Design Framework
2.2.4. Ongoing Engagement with the Company Post-Internship
2.3. Qualitative Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. RQ1 (Receptivity): What Factors Drive Receptivity to Incorporating SDMTs into PD Practice?
3.1.1. Integrating Sustainability into the Company Culture
3.1.2. Relationships with Clients and Stakeholders
3.1.3. Discipline-Specific Insights
3.2. RQ2 (Tools Valued): What do Practitioners Value in Existing Sustainable Design Methods and Tools (SDMTs)?
3.2.1. Compiling Relevant Strategies
3.2.2. Foundation for the Framework Structure
3.3. RQ3 (Co-Creation): How does Co-Creating a Framework with Employees Enable Long-Term Integration?
3.3.1. Organizing Strategies by Life-Cycle Stage, PD Phase, and Focus Areas to Aid Selection
3.3.2. Applying the Overall Framework in PD Practice
3.4. RQ3 (Long-Term Impacts)
- Personal interest among Synapse employees has been a strong driving force for the integration of sustainable design into their PD process. Leadership support has been an added boost;
- Due to the additional time and effort involved, Program Managers and Business Developers feel hesitant to pitch sustainable design to clients upfront for fear of losing the contract;
- Limited publicity of Synapse’s new sustainable design capabilities leaves many clients unaware of the offering in advance;
- It is yet to become a default part of every single project, with most managers waiting for clients to request sustainable design services first;
- Synapse leadership believes that positive marketing stories, resulting in greater client enthusiasm, are the external stimulus necessary to make sustainable design a habit. They are encouraged by having had four sustainable-design-focused projects over the past two years and are hopeful that the numbers will rise.
4. Discussion
4.1. Synthesizing Insights around Our Research Questions
- The use of LCA early on and periodically through the PD process to inform the selection of specific strategies to apply;
- The set of SDMTs reviewed to help identify the strategies relevant to the industry context. This set spanned qualitative to quantitative, as well as product-level to system-level SDMTs;
- The use of life-cycle stages and sustainability focus areas as levers for users to narrow down to the most relevant strategies;
- Using the iterative co-creation process described in Figure 1 to help tailor the set of relevant strategies to the company and industry context.
4.2. Limitations and Opportunities for Future Work
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
Participant | Current Role at Synapse | Education | Total Work Experience, Both at Synapse and Prior |
---|---|---|---|
P1 | Firmware Engineer (FE) | B.S.E in Computer Engineering (CE) and an M.S.E in EE | 4 yrs FE |
P2 | Electrical Engineer (EE) | B.S. and M.S. in EE | 4 yrs EE |
P3 | NPI Engineer | B.S. in ME | 4 yrs ME/NPI |
P4 | Mechanical Engineer (ME) | B.S. in ME | 5 yrs ME |
P5 | Project Manager (PM) | B.S. in Chemical Engineering (CE) | 6 yrs CE, 6 yrs PM |
P6 | Senior Mechanical Engineer | B.A., M.Eng. in ME | 8 yrs ME |
P7 | Principal Consultant (Systems Thinking and Circular Economy) | M.Eng. in ME | 8 yrs consultant |
P8 | Director of Mechanical Engineering | B.S. in ME | 15 yrs ME |
P9 | Principal Strategy and Innovation Consultant | Ph.D. in Chemical Biology | 15 yrs consultant |
P10 | Senior NPI Engineer | B.S. in ME | 21 yrs Mfg.E |
Focus Area | Triple Bottom Line | Sustainable Design Strategies Across Product Life-Cycle Stages | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Env. | Social | Econ. | ||
Resource efficiency | x | Avoid materials and processes that deplete natural resources | ||
x | x | Identify material and energy-efficient manufacturing processes | ||
Resource consumption | x | x | Design for improved durability and longevity | |
x | Design for easy serviceability | |||
x | x | Minimize materials and energy consumed by the product during its use | ||
Selection of low-impact materials | x | Avoid conflict minerals | ||
x | x | Avoid toxic materials that damage human or ecological health in manufacturing, packaging, and end of life | ||
x | Identify materials with lower environmental impacts through manufacturing, packaging, and end-of-life | |||
Health and safety | x | Mitigate health and safety risks of end-of-life strategy | ||
x | Ensure that failure modes and the associated health and safety risks are identified, mitigated, and communicated | |||
x | Identify and communicate health and safety risks to all stakeholders in the distribution network | |||
Social and ethical considerations | x | Inquire about the social and ethical considerations that apply to the client’s distribution network | ||
x | x | Identify, comply with, and exceed social sustainability standards that apply to the system and supply chain | ||
x | Design to amplify positive social and behavioral impacts and minimize negative impacts of the product’s use | |||
Lowering negative impacts of waste | x | x | Manage, mitigate, and find uses for waste from manufacturing and packaging | |
x | Mitigate the impact of waste during system use | |||
Optimization of end-of-life | x | x | Design for easy disassembly | |
x | Design for reuse, remanufacturing, and/or recycling | |||
x | Select end-of-life strategy based on relative environmental impacts | |||
x | x | Plan distribution and processing infrastructure to support the chosen end-of-life strategy | ||
Transport and logistics | x | x | Optimize facility planning and distribution strategies for environmental and economic factors | |
x | Optimize packaging strategy to minimize environmental impact of distribution | |||
Economic efficiency and profitability | x |
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Research Question | Themes | Sub-Themes |
---|---|---|
RQ1: Receptivity to integration | Relationships with clients/stakeholders | Supporting the clients’ decision-making on trade-offs against cost, performance, etc. |
Communicating the value of incorporating sustainability considerations | ||
Discipline-specific insights | Manufacturing engineering | |
Program management | ||
Firmware and software engineering | ||
Electrical engineering | ||
Mechanical engineering | ||
Senior leadership | ||
RQ2: Tools valued | Structure of the framework (design strategy repository) | Sustainability focus areas and triple bottom line |
Sustainable design strategies and focus areas to triple bottom line | ||
Sustainable design strategies and life cycle stages | ||
Sustainable design strategies and PD phases | ||
RQ3: Co-creation | Integrating the framework into the firm’s workflow | Defining what sustainable design means to all Synapse employees |
Making sustainability a part of the culture | ||
Ownership or responsibility for sustainability concerns on projects | ||
Access to internal and external resources for learning | ||
Making internally generated resources accessible and easy to use | ||
Improving the visualization and communication of LCA results | ||
Supporting the internal decision-making on trade-offs against cost, performance, etc. | ||
RQ4: Long-term impacts | Applying the framework in practice | Measure: Using LCA to identify hotspots |
Identify: Identifying relevant strategies in the repository | ||
Apply: Applying the identified strategies to improve the environmental performance of products |
Methods Considered | Env. | Soc. | Econ. | What Were These Methods Valued for? |
---|---|---|---|---|
Integrated as framework structure: | ||||
Whole System Mapping (WSM) | X | X | X | “systems-level view”, “data-driven” (supported by insights from LCA), |
Simplified Life-Cycle Assessment | X | “quantitative rigor”, | ||
UNEP Design for Sustainability | X | X | “easy-to-understand categorization of sustainability impact”, | |
Checklist for Sustainable Product Development | X | X | X | “comprehensive”, “developed in an industry context…might be more relevant than academic tools” |
Strategies selected: | ||||
Okala Ecodesign Strategy Wheel | X | “selection of strategies by product life-cycle stage” | ||
The LiDS Wheel | X | “selection of strategies by product life-cycle stage” | ||
Cradle-to-Cradle Certification | X | “clearly defined requirements”, “reputable industry standard” | ||
MET Matrix | X | “toxicity of materials and processes” | ||
Design for remanufacturing | X | X | “strategy relevant to sustainability” | |
Design for recyclability | X | “strategy relevant to sustainability” | ||
Design for disassembly | X | “strategy relevant to sustainability” | ||
Design for serviceability | X | X | “strategy relevant to sustainability” | |
Considered as optional tools: | ||||
Product-related environmental performance indicators | X | “Great resource for quantitative metrics!” | ||
Factor 10 Engineering Design Principles | X | X | “relevant but obvious” | |
Product Service System Business Model Landscape | X | X | X | “often outside our scope [of influence]” |
Circular Design Guide—Ellen MacArthur Foundation | X | X | X | “some useful methods and tools” |
12 Leverage Points | X | X | X | “broad, high-level”, “useful for early-stage client negotiations” |
Not used: | ||||
10 Golden Rules for Ecodesign | X | “already considered these strategies” | ||
Supplier Social Sustainability Indicators: Emerging Country Context | X | “often outside our scope [of influence]” | ||
Ecodesign Maturity Model | X | “useful for management consultants”, | ||
Ecodesign Checklist Method | X | “repetitive” |
Research Question | Insights |
---|---|
(RQ1) Receptivity to integration: What factors drive the company’s receptivity to incorporating various SDMTs into their PD practice? | Senior leadership’s enthusiasm |
Growing client interest | |
Employees’ personal passions | |
Use of a structured learning approach | |
Minimizing uncertainties in the time and effort needed to engage in sustainable design | |
Incorporating sustainable design into their culture and regular workflow | |
(RQ2) Valued tools: What do practitioners value in existing SDMTs? | Flexibility to use specific activities/mindsets from various methods and tools |
Ability to easily select the right strategy for the problem at hand | |
Structured approaches to aid application of strategies iteratively | |
Addressing environmental, social, and economic factors | |
(RQ3) Co-creation: How does the process of co-creating a customized sustainable design framework enable its integration into the company’s PD practice? | Helped identify SDMTs most relevant to the company’s context |
Helped align the framework with the dynamic and iterative nature of PD | |
Helped gather insights from employees from various divisions and backgrounds | |
Helped participants build ownership of and want to champion the framework they created | |
(RQ4) Long-term impacts: How does the framework support continued consideration of sustainability in the company’s PD practice over time, or if it fails to do so, why? | Communicating the value of sustainable design both internally and externally |
Helping clients identify their sustainability priorities | |
Publishing case studies on how the framework helped enable the sustainable design transition |
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Chatty, T.; Harrison, W.; Ba-Sabaa, H.H.; Faludi, J.; Murnane, E.L. Co-Creating a Framework to Integrate Sustainable Design into Product Development Practice: Case Study at an Engineering Consultancy Firm. Sustainability 2022, 14, 9740. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159740
Chatty T, Harrison W, Ba-Sabaa HH, Faludi J, Murnane EL. Co-Creating a Framework to Integrate Sustainable Design into Product Development Practice: Case Study at an Engineering Consultancy Firm. Sustainability. 2022; 14(15):9740. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159740
Chicago/Turabian StyleChatty, Tejaswini, Will Harrison, Hana H. Ba-Sabaa, Jeremy Faludi, and Elizabeth L. Murnane. 2022. "Co-Creating a Framework to Integrate Sustainable Design into Product Development Practice: Case Study at an Engineering Consultancy Firm" Sustainability 14, no. 15: 9740. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159740