Driving sustainable product development

The term “sustainability” is bandied about rather freely – now that awareness of and concern for environmental impacts continues to grow. There are “sustainable” buildings, “sustainable” energy resources, and “sustainable” food stocks, to name a few of the contexts wrapped around the “sustainability” bandwagon. Yet, in a world where manufacturing and consumption will continue to power society’s economic engine for the foreseeable future, the mother of all uses for “sustainability” is “sustainable design and engineering,” which involves consideration of social, environmental, and economic factors as part of the development, production, use, and disposal of everyday products.
    Consider the impact of a single product, like a computer. How were the materials that were used to build it processed? How far were components transported?  How much energy was used to make it and how much energy will it consume throughout its service life? How will its end-of-life disposal affect the environment? Then, consider multiplying its overall impact by the thousands, if not millions, of units on the market. If you undertake this exercise for the countless other products that you use every day, it’s easy to see how addressing these types of considerations during product development can produce monumentally positive benefits.
    However, because sustainable design represents a philosophical shift to an entirely new product development paradigm, the transition will not only require adoption of sustainable design practices by commercial industry but also the incorporation of these principles in our schools, colleges, and university research programs.
Historically, product design and engineering has almost entirely focused on fit and function – how a design will perform while in-service, including safety and strength requirements, with little emphasis placed on environmental issues. As manufacturing has become increasingly competitive, optimizing material usage has grown in importance as a means to reduce production costs, but manufacturers have only recently considered environmental concerns.
Today, consumer demand for greener, more sustainable products is compelling manufacturers to start concentrating on a range of environmental impacts – everything from the acquisition of raw materials, transportation, and production costs to energy requirements, product usage, and eventual disposal. Fortunately, tools, technologies, and resources are emerging to help teachers and professors prepare the engineers of tomorrow to practice sustainable design.
Applications that help designers address sustainability issues have become part of 3D product design platforms and engineering curriculums. These systems allow students to become environmentally conscious about product design by incorporating a Life Cycle Assessment – a cradle-to-grave analysis of a design’s environmental impact – as a standard part of the engineering design process. By learning how to conduct studies on carbon footprint, energy use, air acidification, and water eutrophication within a product design environment, students will be better prepared to consider environmental factors as engineers.
Students also have more opportunities to participate in sustainable design activities, such as the Formula Hybrid Design Competition, which is organized by the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and endorsed by the Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc. (SAE), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE). Building on the successful SAE Formula Design Series, Formula Hybrid challenges undergraduate and graduate college and university students to design, build, and compete in an open-wheel, single-seat, plug-in hybrid racecar. The car must conform to a formula that emphasizes drive-train innovation and fuel efficiency in a high-performance application. The purpose of the contest is to give engineering students the opportunity to work across disciplinary boundaries while engineering and developing a plug-in hybrid electric racecar and promoting the development of high-efficiency automotive drive trains. Activities like Formula Hybrid give future students real experience in applying sustainable design practices.
Just as important as providing students with sustainable design applications, resources, and activities is a supporting vision by our institutions of higher learning. One college that has wholeheartedly embraced the concept is the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), which has incorporated sustainability into every facet of campus life, from facilities operations to academics. The university offers a Sustainability Design Seminar for its engineering students and operates an online Sustainability Forum to generate fresh ideas and suggestions on sustainability.
Sustainable design and engineering holds the greatest promise for making changes that safeguard the health of the planet.  By incorporating sustainable design in education, we can help students learn how to understand, communicate, and improve environmental impacts. With this knowledge and experience, they can make better choices regarding materials and processes and incorporate social, environmental, and economic considerations as part of product design.

Marie Planchard is director of worldwide education markets for Dassault Systems SolidWorks Corp.