A roadmap for advancing sustainable and circular designs within the automotive industry is proposed. The emphasis is on the critical role of collaborative ecosystems following the increased transparency and traceability underway in regulations. Emerging Digital Product Passports are central means in Europe’s Green Deal and expects to drive transformation of practices in the automotive ecosystem. The study, conducted by researchers in collaboration with a global truck manufacturer, identifies key areas for action, including data quality, stakeholder value, and communication strategies, to facilitate the circular and sustainable transformation. The vision and actions proposed were refined in workshops with automotive suppliers and service providers. By addressing these challenges, the automotive industry can leverage from data accessibility and accelerate its shift towards sustainability.

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.

This chapter addresses two critical aspects of sustainability integration in product design and development. The first aspect considers the scope and rigor of the approach to identify criteria to guide development of solutions with high sustainability performance, i.e., the depth and detail. The second aspect is the limited implementation of existing sustainable product development approaches in industry, which wants new tools and methods to be quick and easy to use. In three use case applications the approaches to identify leading sustainability criteria are evaluated. The results are discussed to provide guidance for industry and academia in what approach to select depending on design context, as well as directions for future research. 

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.

During the last decade, manufacturing companies have experienced an increased demand for solutions that promote socio-ecological sustainability. To succeed in the sustainability transformation, companies need to systematically and strategically implement sustainability performance in their product portfolios. Many companies decide which services, products, and technologies to include in their product portfolios using evaluation criteria related to, for example, cost, quality, risk, revenue, time, and market position. However, often, sustainability aspects are not integrated into such criteria. Incorporating sustainability aspects in the portfolio evaluation criteria could ensure the development of sustainability-promoting solutions. This should be done in the early stages of the product development process, where there is more room for innovation than later in the process. 

The aim of this research is to provide a better understanding of how sustainability performance can be implemented in the product portfolio process of manufacturing companies and thereby support the companies’ sustainability transformation. The research has focused on: 1) how to define the concept of sustainability product portfolios based on the state of the art and the state of practice, 2) determining the current situation in industry related to implementation of sustainability performance in product portfolios, 3) identifying the most used criteria and tools for product portfolio evaluation, and 4) determining how product portfolios are planned, implemented and managed. 

Literature reviews, interviews and workshops were used to collect data from seven large manufacturing companies located in Sweden, one small company located in Colombia, and several research groups and master level student groups. The collected data from industrial cases was organized, processed, analyzed, and verified to provide academic and industry background, to guide the implementation of sustainability performance in the product portfolio

The results from the studies provided a basis for creating guidance in developing a sustainability product portfolio in a company. The guidance includes: i) a definition of the sustainability product portfolio concept; ii) a list of common product portfolio evaluation criteria to be used for a  selection of  portfolio components; iii) key factors to succeed with the integration of sustainability aspects in portfolio development and to implement sustainability performance in the product portfolio; iv) an initial conceptualization model to support the sustainability implementation process in product portfolios; and, v) a digitalized and game-based prototype of the strategic layered double-flow scenario modeling for sustainability risk and portfolio management (STARDUST) method, to guide companies in the implementation of sustainability in their product portfolio. 

With the outcome of this research, practitioners can be supported in their decision-making, especially in the planning stages, with a strategic sustainability perspective to identify sustainability hotspots. Moreover, evaluate portfolio components with a sustainability-informed market-success perspective, compare solutions, and identify benefits and risk that might modify the product portfolio over time.  

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.

Integrating a strategic sustainability perspective in product development requires that decision-makers can connect socio-ecological sustainability aspects to tangible business implications in the short- and long term. Only then will there be the driving forces necessary for adopting sustainable product development practices. A risk management approach can be used to enable strategic proactivity by exposing the potential consequences of sustainability-related decisions, for example in relation to reputation, legislative change, the ability to attract top talent, or meeting customer needs. Through an action research approach and by building on previous findings and existing tools and methods, this study presents the Sustainability Impact and Effects Analysis. This novel method and risk management tool combines the familiar format of the well-established Failure Mode and Effects Analysis with a strategic sustainability perspective. Designed to be applicable in early stages of the product innovation process, this tool aims to increase decision-makers’ awareness of sustainability risks and provide them with a practical way for how to identify, assess, and treat such risks. The tool was developed in close collaboration with industry and tested in two different companies. The results indicate the effectiveness of the tool for identifying and analyzing sustainability risks, as well as deriving and monitoring strategies for how to manage them strategically, also leading to an increased awareness of the interconnections between socio-ecological sustainability aspects and business implications. Thereby, it can provide support for companies in how to work with product development in a way that contributes to society's transition towards sustainability, while benefiting the own organization. © 2022 The Authors

Companies need to strategically develop their portfolio and find the balance between being proactive and passive in relation to sustainability. In this study, a strategic perspective based on backcasting from overarching socio-ecological sustainability principles was used as a lens to understand how companies might adapt their product portfolios to avoid threats and exploit opportunities on increasingly sustainability-driven markets. The study shows that sustainability performance, market success, and time are key areas to be considered in the product portfolio process to ensure short-term profitability and long-term competitiveness. A novel method was developed and tested in one academic group and two companies to explore how such a strategic sustainability perspective can support the product portfolio process in practice. The results indicate that the strategic layered double-flow scenario method, including different time horizons, was supportive in identifying opportunities and avoid risks in the sustainable development process at the company.

Product development companies’ attention and desire to contribute to sustainable development is growing fast but requires new capabilities. The socioecological systems constitute a complex landscape of operating conditions from which product development identify needs for new products. Correct needs interpretation is essential to ensure that the requirements that the needs are transformed into do represent the shared understanding of the design problem that is to be solved. However, companies find it challenging to integrate sustainability into requirements. Socioecological criteria therefore tend to be down prioritized in trade-offs with traditionally identified requirements for engineering design.

This thesis asks the following question: “In which ways can decision-making practices for requirements development and management support sustainable product development?” and aims to provide deeper knowledge to academia and support product development companies that wish to advance their contribution to sustainable development. A mainly qualitative research design using exploratory, descriptive, and prescriptive studies clarifies the research gap, and proposes and evaluates novel approaches to improve the state of knowledge and practice. These research studies are represented by the seven publications within this thesis. The first was a systematic literature review on current methods and tools for sustainability integration into requirements. Thereafter followed a multiple-case study with semi-structured interviews at seven Swedish product development companies. A model of five key elements of sustainability integration in requirements was proposed, which in a third, focus group case study with four companies, was developed into, and tested as, a self-assessment tool. The results were discussed in relation to theory on requirements engineering and sustainability design criteria, which emphasized that companies lack capabilities to contextualize requirements development using wider sustainability- and systems perspectives. Decision-makers responsible for requirements weighting need to anchor sustainability as a value driver which requires transparency and traceability in decision-support. A fourth study therefore explored sustainability integration in value modelling for concept selection, and a fifth study proposed an approach to guide sustainability criteria development following requirement characteristics. The sixth study proposed an approach to inform requirement analysis through improved systems contextualization, transparency, and shared understanding of sustainability in relation to other design objectives. Finally, the seventh study provided an outlook and initial discussion to guide the identification of value drivers on a macro-level in society which could leverage an increased uptake of sustainability-oriented requirements in product development

Altogether this thesis provides insights and approaches to guide companies to advance towards sustainable product development through the lens of requirements. Examples include key characteristics of, and principles for, identifying sustainability criteria and developing requirements using strategic sustainability thinking, as well as a support tool for guiding activities in different steps of the requirements development. The findings can also be used in education of future engineers and decision-makers, and for continued research.

Linear production is related to resource scarcity and negative environmental impacts. Circular Economy (CE) emerged for society transition towards sustainability, based on regenerative systems and multiple life cycle products. Product Life cycle Management (PLM) supports the whole life cycle with the aid of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). A literature review analyzed the role of ICT enabling CE based on PLM, identifying challenges and opportunities, active and passive PLM, system perspective, stakeholder's role, and sustainability. Concluding that ICT enables the CE transition. © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.