Product development and manufacturing organizations struggle in their sustainability transformation and do not sufficiently contribute to sustainable production and consumption. Design researchers, at the same time, develop and propose a plethora of new and improved design methods that can support the manufacturing industry in such transformation. It is, despite this, well-documented in literature that the industrial adoption of such proposed design methods is challenging. Previous research in the design domain has mainly studied this issue from a process and methodological perspective, whereas previous research in the management domain instead has focused on organizational, and human-behavioral aspects. This poses a research gap for more interdisciplinary research that studies the adoption of design methods from all three perspectives (i.e., process and methodology, organization, and human behavior). Six parallel case studies were carried out with three different product development and manufacturing organizations to collect qualitative empirical data. Glaserian grounded theory was used to analyze the collected data. This resulted in a descriptive framework that captures 53 interdisciplinary factors influencing the adoption of sustainable design practices using new and improved design methods. The descriptive framework is compared to interdisciplinary literature to further clarify and explain the findings, highlighting both practical and theoretical implications. This research provides three main contributions to theory and practice: (1) Two new concepts are introduced and used to explain the empirical findings, which are referred to as the dualism of design methods, and the situational design problem; (2) Nine systemic barriers and eight propositions are formulated, which highlight the need for a paradigm shift in how design is practiced in industry, how cognitive biases inside organizations can lead to a state of pseudo-sustainability, and the need for improved information and data management capabilities in organizations; (3) Sustainable design thinking is proposed as an potential enabler to address several of the main barriers, as it aims to provide a base competence of sustainable design to systematically challenge cognitive biases inside organizations.

Introducing new technologies in low-income contexts have potential for positive social impact, and such efforts are made by humanitarian engineering non-govermental organisations (NGOs). The impact can increase if a systemic sustainability perspective is considered in the design process. Sustainability criteria are identified using a literature study combined with an empirical study together with a Swedish NGO. These criteria are synthesized into a simplified Sustainability Fingerprint tool which is evaluated and deemed to be useful when introducing new technologies in low-income contexts. © 2024 Proceedings of the Design Society. All rights reserved.

The sustainable design transition has proven to be a challenging process, in part due to the diverse set of stakeholders, which includes the general public, policymakers, scientific researchers, and businesses. In prior work, the interconnected relationships among systematic drivers and barriers for sustainable design were identified and mapped using a causal loop diagram at a relatively abstract level. To further understand and characterize this complex system, this research aims to identify the relationship strength levels among the variables in the system, as indicated by previous research identified in the literature. In addition, the knowledge maturity levels of these identified relationships are specified to illustrate strengths and gaps in the literature. The findings are used to create a refined system representation that illustrates the power dynamics between systemic driving forces to sustainable design transitions. The results of this work reveal valuable insights about the linkages among the driving forces of sustainable design transitions that can be used as a foundation for further investigation, such as experiments and data analytics that can better quantify these relationships. © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Additive manufacturing has the potential to decrease the climate impact of aviation by providing more light-weight designs. Sustainability is however required to be assessed from a systemic view, including all lifecycle phases, and from a social, ecologic, and economic dimension. This is however challenging in early phase design, where also a large design space need to be explored. A case study is carried out with an aerospace company where two candidate engineering design tools are combined to address this. The integration of these two engineering tools are applied on a Turbine Rear Structure, and shows promising results in enabling a systemic view of sustainability to be integrated and assessed in early phase design space explorations of additive manufactured components. It is recommended that the integration between the two tools is further established and validated. © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.

The aim of this research is to explore if and how digitalization and a game-based approach can improve the usability and implementation of sustainable design methods and tools in a product development process. Based on semi-systematic literature review, advantages and limitations of digitalization and game-based approaches in this context were identified. A previously developed method that guides the implementation of a strategic sustainability perspective in product portfolio development, was then selected and elements of digitalization and game-based approaches were incorporated in its four building blocks: double-flow scenario modeling, sustainability assessment, market success assessment, and portfolio development. The resulting prototype of this method was further adapted after feedback gathered through expert interviews and then tested in workshops with industry and academia. It was found that digitalization was especially useful for the scenario simulation, data management, and automatic visualization of results, while the benefits of the game-based approach were enhanced motivation, collaboration, and co-design of results and solutions. At the same time, drawbacks were discovered, for example related to decreased transparency of how results are calculated, overuse of visualization and extrinsic rewards, leading to lack of clarity and trust in the results. In conclusion, there are synergies between digitalization and game-based approaches that can improve the usability of sustainable design methods and tools, but extensive testing is recommended to avoid pitfalls that can lead to opposite effects. Moreover, recommendations were identified for how to include digitalization and a game-based approach, for example, to enable integration with other tools, maintenance and constant update, to explore the benefits of team-based assessments and collaboration, to add diversity and customization, and to link the game to the user's context, application, expectations and requirements.

In the EU, initiatives with concrete instruments for measuring and storing sustainability-related product data are now introduced in legislation. Based on literature review and semi-structured interviews, this study investigates two EU instruments, the Product Environmental Footprint method and Digital Product Passports, and their potential implications for company capabilities to design and select more sustainable solutions in a strategic way. The results show that these instruments can lead to increased transparency and traceability in the design and comparison of solutions, allowing for more effective collaboration across the value chain. By applying a strategic sustainability perspective, it was found that these EU instruments have major limitations as they lack a systems perspective, do not include a full socio-ecological sustainability perspective, and do not support strategic decision-making. This results in risks for suboptimization and the design of solutions that turn out to be costly dead-ends on the way towards a sustainable society. Research is therefore recommended to investigate how these instruments can facilitate a strategic development of sustainable solutions. © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.

During the early phases of design of new products, information necessary to guide and assess sustainability is typically incomplete. Manufacturers risk discovering the unfavorable sustainability impact too late to redirect the development. The purpose of this study is to search and review methods to anticipate the sustainability performance of new products in the early stages of the innovation process, and, together with a case company in the aeroengine manufacturing business, to develop and propose a systematic approach to anticipate sustainability performance. Following a literature review of 51 methods and research-based proposals, only five covered the social-, ecological-, and economic sustainability dimensions in the early phases of product development. Through an action research-based approach, a qualitative sustainability measurement tool, the Sustainability Fingerprint tool, was developed. This tool allows the development team in a company to systematically derive a sustainability performance from a set of criteria unique to the targeted product and/or product portfolio that is to be designed, from a set of scientifically well-established sustainability principles. The tool was applied in six different industry cases at the company, by the design teams and independent of any influence of the researchers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to learn about the usefulness, usability, and applicability of the tool. It was concluded that the Sustainability Fingerprint tool has no equivalent in the literature and was considered useful for the case company during early phase design for two main reasons. Firstly, the tool is tailor-made with defined company-specific sustainability criteria that represent the most important sustainability aspects to assess. Secondly, the support tool can be used also in later phases, thereby supporting a continued innovation process. It allows designers to anticipate a sustainability performance of the solution in: the development of sustainable innovations; comparison and down-selection of alternative solutions; sustainability assessments of the product portfolio to identify improvement measures; and sustainability assessment of current products to identify sustainability hotspots. Further research will include companies from other industrial sectors and will focus on adding digital support, improved practical instructions, and, integration to existing processes and established support tools in companies today. © 2023 The Authors

A radical shift in technology is necessary to enable future air transport solutions. Sustainability targets for aeroengine manufacturing mean more than reducing CO2 and NOX. The future will open up possibilities and bring new challenges when introducing hybrid- and electrical propulsion technologies using new materials, technology solutions and new business models. This article reports on findings from a longitudinal study and many years of collaboration between researchers and industry experts, where a first-tier aeroengine manufacturer transforms their product development capabilities to enable sustainable product development. The article highlights some activities undertaken and identifies critical challenges and opportunities remaining for a manufacturer of next-generation aeroengine solutions. It is argued that the challenge for aeroengine manufacturers to develop new-generation propulsive technologies will require a systemic change in the undertaking of design and development. The opportunities of sustainable technologies are evident yet require: (1) means to tighter integrate business and technology development, (2) the ability to quantify and assess sustainability impacts of different concept solutions, and (3) means to utilise natural resources, alloys and materials for a circular and life-cycle optimised solution.

Sustainability has shifted from strategically important to business critical for several manufacturing industries. This paper introduces an implementation framework to increase the capabilities in companies to design, develop and offer sustainable product- and production solutions in line with new regulatory strategies and plans. Based on a questionnaire survey, conducted in ten different product development companies representing different industrial sectors, the status and needs of sustainable product development were captured. Further on, a better understanding of the capabilities for a forthcoming digital sustainable product development support, were identified in an action research-based approach with three industrial companies. This paper presents the rational of a digital sustainable product development support, in relation to global sustainability goals and societal dimensions of sustainability transitions. The main results from the questionnaire presents the challenges and needs of capabilities for product developers and design engineers to develop more sustainable solutions in a resource efficient way. The action-based research with the three industrial manufacturing partners resulted in a set of common key activities and detailed requirements for a digital sustainable product development support. Finally, the paper describes a first prototype of a digital platform, i.e. Digital Sustainability Implementation Package-DSIP, and discusses future work. © Proceedings of NordDesign 2022: How Product and Manufacturing Design Enable Sustainable Companies and Societies.

This research seeks to investigate the effects of a Group Model Building approach on the sustainability knowledge base prior to the weighting of design requirements. Current practice shows that the knowledge about sustainability impacts and implications on other design objectives often is limited and dispersed among decision-makers. Including sustainability criteria in needs and requirements, therefore, tend to rely on limited knowledge and decision-support, leading to decision-makers often prioritizing design objectives that they are more experienced with. The aim of this research was to capture and discuss effects on team alignment of contextual sustainability understanding from co-modeling impacts and implications of sustainability on other design objectives. The research question guiding the study is ‘what are the effects of a group model building approach on early sustainability design decisions?’. A mixed-methods research, structured according to four assumptions, was designed to analyze effects quantitatively and qualitatively. The assumptions were that the proposed approach helps design teams foster an improved contextual sustainability understanding, align the view of the relative importance of sustainability, identify suitable sustainability improvement, and increase the knowledge maturity of their design decisions. The results triangulation showed that the participants showed signs of improved sustainability understanding of their design projects and that improvement actions were identified from applying the approach. A statistically relevant converging effect could be found on the team alignment of the weighting of sustainability criteria but not on the knowledge maturity. These findings are discussed to conclude on main contributions, limitations, and areas for future work.