From an Ecodesign Guide to a Sustainable Design Guide : Complementing Social Aspects of Sustainable Product Design Guidelines

Companies succeed in sustainable product design, at least in the short term, by developing a more integrated design process. Rather than just focusing on acquiring new skill sets, they create new cross-functional interactions in their organizations that enable them to design and commercialize breakthrough products. Using in-depth case studies, this report offers examples of the introspective process that organizations have gone through to develop the capacity to design products more sustainably. These real-world examples illustrate how an Assess-Bridge-Create-Diffuse framework builds sustainability intelligence and life-cycle awareness into the product design process.