Lesson 2-3.1 Sustainable Product Design

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En provenance du cours de University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Sustainable Business Enterprises

41 notes

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Sustainable Business Enterprises

41 notes

Cours 2 sur 7 dans Specialization Global Challenges in Business

This course will explore current challenges and opportunities facing firms in the area of environmental sustainability. It will begin with an introduction to sustainability, with a particular focus on how environmental sustainability is relevant to business. Topics such as unsustainable consumption/consumer behavior, market research sustainable product design, sustainable value chains and communications will be covered. The bottom-up approach in terms of immersion, emersion, and design as applied to sustainable business enterprise will be covered. The course concludes with a summary of insights on global challenges in business, with particular focus on poverty and the environment, and on the unique approach employed here in terms of bottom-up immersion, emersion, design, innovation, and enterprise. Upon successful completion of this course you will be able to: • Understand the importance of sustainability for business • Learn about specific topics consumer behavior, market research, product design, value chains and communications using the sustainability lens in business • Design solutions and develop enterprise plans for sustainable business initiatives • Apply the bottom-up approach for sustainable business initiatives in any context This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.

À partir de la leçon

Module 2: Sustainable Product Design and Market Research

This module focuses on understanding how to conduct market research in the arena of sustainability. It also covers how to develop sustainable products. The bottom-up approach in terms of immersion, emersion, and design as applied to sustainable business enterprise is covered. A parallel project focuses on designing a core and augmented solution and an ecosystem.

Lesson 2-3.1 Sustainable Product Design9:29

Rencontrer les enseignants

Madhu Viswanathan
Diane and Steven N. Miller Professor in Business
Department of Business Administration

Our topic for this lesson is sustainable product design.

Examine the upcoming examples carefully

in order to understand what makes them sustainable product designs.

Make sure and write down your notes as you go along

so that you will be prepared to type in your thoughts at the end of this exercise.

What is your favorite sustainable product?

Why?

What makes a product sustainable?

This is for organic packaging for products, natural materials grown in mold.

Greensulate is more than a low cost biodegradable composite.

It is a sustainable production process with cross industry applications.

Renewable agricultural waste is used for this.

Another example is the 3M clean sponge.

They use unutilized plant waste.

It is 100 percent plant based fiber that is conservation of energy and water

and the majority of the Agava plant waste is utilized.

You see more and more such examples.

This is a recyclable track jacket and backpack from Puma.

It is interesting, in that it has two cycles, a biological cycle and a technical cycle.

If you're part of the biological cycle, whatever you make has got to be biodegradable.

The technical cycle starts at the factory.

The product is made, used, disposed and so on, but broken down into raw materials.

This is consistent with the notion of Cradle to Cradle

rather than Cradle to Grave processes.

So, sustainable products would fall into either of these two cycles,

biological or technical.

For example, the printer cartridges that you may return would end up being used again.

So, the idea is not recycling alone but also that the product gets re-used.

The next example is a recyclable molded paper bottle.

It's raw materials come from recycled cardboard, it bypasses industrial processing,

and six times more bottles can be shipped per truckload.

Here is another example.

These are just some examples that I found.

There are a number of ways to summarize the unique aspects

of sustainable product design in the examples that you saw.

Here's a question for you.

What are some aspects you found to be unique about these examples?

Think about it and jot down your thoughts.

I'm going to summarize what I've learned through something

that happened to me when I bought my Prius.

The first time I saw the display on the Prius,

I could see what was happening to the energy,

whether the energy from the wheels were charging the battery

or the gasoline was powering the wheels and so on.

By observing usage I can modify my driving but I need to be careful not to be distracted.

I was really surprised the first time I braked in the Prius

and I noticed that I was getting the equal end of infinite mpg.

Now why is that?

That's because there is a rechargeable battery onboard

and the energy from braking is actually being used to charge the battery.

I'm no expert but look up regenerative braking on the internet.

And, I thought here a design which is based on the idea

that we cannot afford to waste resources.

In contrast to the design that we see around us

that assumes that we can waste some of these resources.

So, this is an interesting way to think as consumers and as producers.

The feedback I'm getting from the car is also important

as I learn how to drive using less energy.

It is interesting to see how just getting feedback helps us change behavior.

For example, the business instructional facility we are in is a platinum LEED facility.

Classrooms in this facility go dark if there is no motion.

But here's what I don't know about the Prius.

What does the embodied energy that goes into making it?

So, we have to look at how the product was made to learn about the overall impact.

So, some of the design principles are interesting.

Obtaining feedback as we saw with the Prius is one element.

Integrating into nature is another element.

It is not about going back 100 years but moving forward based on what we've learned.

It is about moving forward in concert with nature

and incorporating those elements into design.

The idea of Cradle to Cradle is a truly pioneering insight in the area of sustainability.

Instead of thinking of products as Cradle to Grave linear,

we think of them as Cradle to Cradle, cyclical.

As an example, the book that you're seeing is not a tree.

So it's made from material that can be used to make another book

and it's durable, it's waterproof, it's recyclable.

From a Cradle to Cradle perspective, whatever we make has to belong in one of two cycles.

It has to either belong to the biological cycle and be biodegradable

or it has to belong to the technical cycle and be re-used of the same quality.

So this is not about recycling something.

This is about reusing something.

So if you think of some of those cartridges that we sometimes mail back for our printers,

the idea would be to be able to use

those cartridges to make the next generation of cartridges.

That's what the technical cycle would be.

So anything that goes into a product should either belong to the biological cycle

or the technical cycle.

Now, let us think of some of our assumptions about conventional production.

We assume that there are infinite resources.

We assume that Cradle to Grave mentality,

a linear way of thinking where we go from extraction to landfill.

We often assume that one size fits all,

whether it's fast food or a detergent that is made for the worst case scenario.

We use brute force and more of it.

That is a lot of compartmentalization or monoculture.

In other words, in growing one crop very well using one type of fertilizer.

And, there is the idea of products plus or crude products.

In other words, products can contain a number of other things including toxic materials.

Now, I want to make clear that this was part

of the industrial revolution which led to so many advances.

But we are finding out in the last few decades

that it is causing quite a bit of harm as well.

And that's why we are going to turn the ship of sustainable product design

or a sustainable business.

We have to turn it in a direction that is going to be fruitful for future generations

and for the environment.

So the recommendations of the Cradle to Cradle approach

are the idea that waste equals food.

In other words, instead of thinking linearly, we have to be thinking cyclically.

That is the idea of respecting diversity whether it's in organic farming

or in using a variety of different approaches

with a variety of different natural ingredients.

And then, there is the idea of using solar income.

Some of the sustainable design principles include being cyclical, being solar, safe,

efficient, social, in other words, thinking about the community.

And, all of this is not about moving back in time

but moving forward in concert with nature.

There is no way that moving back in time is going to fill the supply chains we need

for the growing populations and the emerging economies around the world.

That's not the point of all this.

The point of all this is to move forward in a way

that is in concert with nature while learning from our past.

Here are some more examples.

For this chair the idea is to take, make, regenerate, and then to do this again.

So you are part of the biological or the technical.

You think in those terms, not only for the environment,

but also for some other win wins and synergies.

For example, this is the eco-smart plus, saves in logistics,

but saves in a lot of other ways as well.

This keyboard is an example of dematerializing, finding a way to use less material.

In the case of iPhone trying to dematerialize,

trying to reduce the impact, is another example.

These are wine bottles used for a different purpose.

And, finally, one of the sustainable design principles

is to think about the lifecycle of a product.

This is not about the lifecycle, as in product sales,

but the lifecycle of the product itself in terms of where it begins and where it ends up.

Here is an example of lifecycle analysis.

This is an analysis from packaging to end of life.

This has become sophisticated and you can see the science in it as well.

You can see where the footprint is higher, is it in design

or manufacturing, and it is a way to see impact.

Here's a lifecycle assessment question for you.

Consider a product that you have in your possession right now.

Where does it come from and where does it end up?

Try to draw the lifecycle.

And then try to draw the lifecycle to make it more sustainable as well.

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