Integrating sustainability into early product design stage is crucial for companies to navigate complexity effectively. Based on a long-term research collaboration with an aerospace product manufacturer, this paper introduces an improved prototype of the Sustainability Criteria and Product Life-Cycle Data Simulation digital decision-support tool for visualising and comparing the sustainability implications of product design concepts. Unlike existing tools, it allows quantitative comparisons in early design stages and is based on overarching socio-ecological sustainability principles and a backcasting perspective. A sustainability merit score for each product design concept is derived from selected indicators and sustainability criteria. The paper also reports on the results from a focus group evaluation study and discusses the value and challenges faced when developing this type of tool, including accuracy, data availability limitations, and the dilemma of indicator weighting. 

The communication of sustainability values shared between product developers and customers is an important catalyst for effective collaboration that inspires sustainable consumption. Despite the many tools developed for assessing and communicating product’s sustainability performance, customers are facing difficulties in understanding product sustainability information. The knowledge gaps remain underexplored about how product sustainability information is perceived and how this impacts customer purchasing behaviour. This paper outlines a new approach, driven by both backcasting and forecasting thinking, for understanding and modelling customer preferences for product sustainability information. We report findings from a case study of a large workplace furniture manufacturer. The study explored the potential of i) identifying prioritised sustainability attributes using Sustainability Design Space (SDS), and ii) applying machine learning to model customer preferences.

Sustainable design methods and tools abound, but their implementation in practice remains marginal. This article brings together results from previous literature reviews and analyses of sustainable design methods and tools, as well as input from design researchers and professional practitioners to identify the needs and gaps in the area. It results in a shared vision of how sustainable design methods and tools can be more tightly integrated into mainstream product design and development, as well as the current state of practice and research in relation to four central questions: What are the needs and values of industry regarding sustainable design? What improvements in sustainable design methods and tools would most drive industry forward? How should researchers move forwardwith developingmore useful sustainable designmethods and tools? Howcan sustainable design be more effectively integrated into industry? A roadmap for the international sustainable design research community is proposed with descriptions of short-, medium-, and long-term tasks for addressing each question. The purpose is to support collective progress and discussions on method and tool development and adoption, and to enablemore tangible success inmainstreaming sustainable design practices in industry. © 2020 by the authors.

Companies struggle with identifying relevant sustainability aspects strategically, assessing alternative solutions quantitatively, and making trade-offs. This paper reports results from a prescriptive study with an aerospace company, and presents the Sustainability Criteria And product life-cycle Data Simulation (SCADS) approach. Based on strategic integration of sustainability indicators, this approach aims to enable visualisation and comparison of the sustainability implications of different concepts in early design phases of product development.