Know your starting point
Firstly let’s get one thing clear, there is no such thing as a truly ‘sustainable’ product. More often than not, the most ‘green’ product is the one that never got made. However we can, and must, be better than what has come before.
In order to guarantee we are heading in the right direction, we need to first establish our starting point. Whether you are looking to improve on your own existing product or service or bring a new product into the market that has less environmental impact than than a competitor, you first need a benchmark.
Life Cycle Assessment
The most widely recognised method of measuring how ‘sustainable’ a product is, is through an LCA (life cycle assessment).
An LCA looks holistically from start to finish of a product’s journey. It takes into account the source of raw material(s), energy requirements for manufacturing, emissions from transportation, resources needed for use and maintenance and ultimately what may/may not be recaptured at the end-of-life. The complexity of the data requirements make it a lengthy and often expensive process, however it can help you identify which phase of the product life-cycle is the most polluting and therefore where you can make the biggest impact. Doing the same assessment at the end of the process will validate how/if you achieved your targets.
Simple carbon footprinting tools include; 2030 calculator
Online LCA services include; sustainable minds, simpa pro and open LCA.
More advanced LCA programs include; GaBi Sphera and SimaPro
Qualitative LCA
While the most accurate Life Cycle Assessments are fully data driven, sometimes a more qualitative assessment is enough. Used by companies like 3M, qualitative LCA’s are typically implemented during the design process to provide a considered insight into the impact of different design opportunities. Whilst in most cases there are no standard axes, and so the metrics can be set by the companies themselves, there are instances when the evaluation approach has been adopted on a wider scale. A good example is the Higg’s Index which is now widely used in the apparel industry and measures key areas of impact including Global Warming Potential, Fossil Fuel Depletion and Water Scarcity.
Conceptual Life Cycle Thinking using a LIDS wheel
The tool we use most commonly at Morrama is the LIDS (Lifecycle Design Strategies) wheel. It is a great way to visualise and compare a current product or design with where we want to get to. Like a quantitative LCA it is not data driven and therefore cannot be used to determine the actual environmental impact of a product, however it is an excellent way of evaluating environmental tradeoffs between concept directions throughout the design process.
A LIDS wheel is a method of mapping a product against 6-8 sustainable factors. These can all be changed depending on needs and type of product being designed, but typically we use the 8 titles as shown in the example below.
