Eco-SCAMPER: A Knowledge-Based Toolkit for Integrating Structured Creativity into Sustainable Design Ideation

Design is a key enabler for the global transition to a Circular Economy (CE), with early-stage decisions determining up to 80% of a product’s life cycle impacts. However, a persistent knowledge-action gap prevents practitioners from effectively translating high-level sustainability principles into tangible design actions. To address this challenge, this paper presents Eco-SCAMPER, a novel, knowledge-based toolkit that systematically integrates sustainability strategies with a structured creativity methodology. This toolkit is realised as an interactive web application, built upon a database of 129 real-world case studies processed by a two-stage Large Language Model (LLM) pipeline. It uniquely connects abstract sustainability goals not only to concrete design features but also to specific creative ideation techniques. An initial validation study with five design experts confirmed the toolkit’s effectiveness in bridging strategy and action (M=4.4/5.0) and its value as a catalyst for creative ideation (M=4.0/5.0). By explicitly linking sustainability theory with creative practice through an evidence-based, interactive platform, Eco-SCAMPER offers a novel contribution that moves beyond traditional Ecodesign checklists, empowering designers to generate more informed and innovative solutions in the critical early stages of product development.