3rd PLATE Conference
September 18 – 20, 2019
Berlin, Germany
Nils F. Nissen
Melanie Jaeger-Erben (eds.)
Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin
Marwede, Max; Wagner, Eduard; Jaeger-Erben, Melanie: Hide and seek –
a systemic approach to sustainability in product development . In:
Nissen, Nils F.; Jaeger-Erben, Melanie (Eds.): PLATE – Product Lifetimes
And The Environment : Proceedings, 3rd PLATE CONFERENCE, BERLIN,
GERMA-NY, 18 – 20 September 2019. Berlin: Universitätsverlag der TU
Berlin, 2021. pp. 525 – 531. ISBN 978-3-7983-3125-9 (online). https://
doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-9253.
This article – except for quotes, fi gures and where otherwise noted – is
licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0).
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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3rd PLATE 2019 Conference
Berlin, Germany, 18-20 September 2019
Hide and Seek – a Systemic Approach to Sustainability in Product
Development
Marwede, Max; Wagner, Eduard; Jaeger-Erben, Melanie
Technische Universität Berlin, Chair of Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research in Electronics, Berlin, Germany
Keywords: Design for Longevity; Ecodesign Process; Barriers and Enablers; Interviews; Systemic
Approach.
Abstract: The size and extend of a product’s environmental impact along its life-cycle is mainly
determined in the design phase. So far, studies on product design processes show that Design for
Longevity criteria such as reparability, maintainability, and upgradeability are only considered
secondarily or in exceptional cases. The crucial questions is why available eco-design processes as
well as respective tools, methods are not used widely in the industry. To answer this question we
conducted a literature review and semi-structured interviews with several product development
experts about product development processes, particularly asking about criteria influencing design
decision, and the relevance of measures to prolong the lifetime of products. The qualitative data
revealed a number of categories for barriers and enablers for the integration of longevity into the
product development. Based on that we developed a systemic approach to the conditions facilitating
the integration of longevity into the product development process. At system-level, longevity is
integrated into the product development process if the relevant strategic and operational knowledge
and know-how is available, if “environmental” values are integrated in the company’s strategies,
processes decisions, culture, and mind-sets, if the production equipment, the infrastructure, materials,
and components are available, if a close collaboration across departments and within a partner-
network on equal footing can take place, and of course if the political framework supports long living
products. Seeing the many “ifs” it becomes clear that it’s not only about changing single processes
but changing a company’s internal practices and culture as well as the external drivers.
Introduction
Environmental impacts are caused in all stages
of the product’s life-cycle. From overburden
during mining, energy and chemical use plus
waste production during refining and
processing the materials to components and
products, emissions during the transport and
use phase to landfilling at end of life. Those
environmental profiles differ from product to
product, but one can say that regardless of the
nature, size and time of occurrence of
environmental impacts for a product, they are
mainly determined in the early design phase
(McAloone & Bey, 2009). However, this is
usually not considered by product designers.
Design practices are mostly oriented towards
other criteria such as competitive performance
and functionality, costs, and material
properties. A consideration of ecodesign
criteria such as longevity, reparability,
maintainability, upgradeability, and recyclability
only happens in exceptional cases (Graulich et
al., 2017) This is problematic from an
environmental point of view, since these
properties cannot be retrofitted once the
product is designed. Therefore, ecological
sustainability of products starts with the design.
Thus, eco-design is a “systematic approach
which takes into account environmental
aspects in the design and development
process with the aim to reduce adverse
environmental impacts” (IEC, 2009).
The last 30 years were characterized by a
huge increase of eco-design processes, tools
and methods that are meant to facilitate the
designs and production of eco-friendly products
(Ceschin & Gaziulusoy, 2016). Due to their
multitude and their complexity the correct
selection and use of those requires high prior
understanding. One reason why their
application is far from being mainstream
(Pigosso, McAloone, & Rozenfeld, 2015). What
are the reasons that available know-how did
and does not find its way into the common
design practice? The following paper is tackling
this questions.
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3rd PLATE Conference Berlin, Germany, 18-20 September 2019
Marwede M., Wagner E., Jäger-Erben M.
Hide and seek – a systemic approach to sustainability in product
development
Research Approach
A master thesis supervised by one of the
authors investigated to which extend eco-
design criteria are part of the decision process
during product development (Maurer, 2018).
Seven experts in the field of product
development mainly working in the electronics
industry were interviewed. The experts were
recruited from the authors’ and supervisors’
professional and private network. It included
experts of one large, one medium sized
company, two startups and one micro-
enterprise as well as one design consultant
and one service provider for hardware
development. (Maurer, 2018) frames the
interviews with a “general” product innovation
process, eco-design methods and tools (eco-
design methodology), eco-design principles
and eco-design strategies. Furthermore, he
already collected barriers and advantages of
eco-design from literature.
The interviews were transcribed, coded and
categorized using a qualitative data analysis
software. The interview transcripts were
analysed with a focus on the process of
product design and innovation management in
the electronics sector and those process
characteristics that were relevant for eco-
design decisions (process orientation). Major
questions were: What are relevant barriers,
enablers, meanings and contexts that shape
design decisions – particularly in the
development of new products – and what is the
role of eco-design criteria?
In a second step the research team embedded
the process and the relevant practices
identified by (Maurer, 2018) into contexts and
settings that turned out to be relevant for them
(systemic perspective). The question here was:
What are contextual conditions that shape
practices in providing possibilities for eco-
design relevant decisions and actions?
The content of both process and system
analysis were enriched and complemented with
results of (Graulich et al., 2017) who conducted
a desktop research and interviewed industry
representatives from 19 different companies in
order to identify triggers, success factors and
barriers for eco-design. Besides, insights of
expert interviews conducted during the
European INTERREG Project EcoDesign
Circle (www.ecodesigncircle.eu) were added
(Marwede, Paukstadt, Hofmann, Clemm, &
Jokinen, 2019).
As a result we propose a systemic framework
that describes qualities of an organisational
surrounding that support eco-design. This
approach helps to understand which conditions
can foster the integration of eco-design into the
product development.
Limitation of this qualitative research approach
is that results cannot be seen as representative
for a whole sector or industry or company size
and the results present rather the personal
opinion and experience of the interviewee than
the actual practice in the overall company.
However, the in-depths interviews with overall
26 individuals backed-up with literature can
give a good understanding of barriers and
favourable conditions for eco-design.
Barriers for the integration eco-
design into the companies practices
The following subsections represent the major
categories of barriers found in (Graulich et al.,
2017; Marwede et al., 2019; Maurer, 2018):
• Knowledge, know-how and
competences of individuals in the
company on all levels include the lack of
awareness of the benefits, the lack of
theoretical knowledge e.g. how to assess
environmental impacts of products and the
added value through eco-design. Also
strategic competences of practitioners are
missing how to combine eco-design and
business models. Furthermore, the
multitude and complexity of eco-design
methods hamper the easy selection and
use of those. But also data and
specifications about alternative
sustainable materials might not be
available or easy accessible. Even if eco-
design knowledge is available, this is not
successfully integrated into internal
processes and not brought into practice.
• Organisational and structural barriers
relate mainly to the lack of cooperation and
information exchange across departments
e.g. the environmental management sector
and the product development department
do not cooperate. Also strong hierarchies,
a high degree of bureaucracy and budgets
assigned to single departments hamper
eco-design.
“As bigger it gets the more difficult it gets
because there are so many departments
so many hierarchical levels and so and so
that makes it challenging to work in that
kind of multidisciplinary way of really
taking care together and solving the
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3rd PLATE Conference Berlin, Germany, 18-20 September 2019
Marwede M., Wagner E., Jäger-Erben M.
Hide and seek – a systemic approach to sustainability in product
development
problem what you are facing on in the
project program” (Anonymous, 2017a)
Furthermore, eco-design requirements are
not defined at all or are integrated too late
into the product development process
when all technical requirements are
already defined.
• Infrastructural and technical barriers
(materiality): The company might not have
the required infrastructure, technical
equipment or other necessary resources
for the realization. Being stuck in path
dependencies hampers the transition to
eco-design, e.g. given production
equipment, recent investments taken, or
dependency on certain suppliers or
components. Furthermore, the
“materiality” determines the processes
and products, e.g. alternative materials,
manufacturing processes, infrastructure or
equipment are not available – either not at
all or not in a sufficient quantity or quality.
Furthermore, eco-design criteria might
conflict (trade-off) with price, functionality,
safety and aesthetic criteria (e.g.
dismantlability versus robustness,
aesthetics and technical characteristics of
recycled or renewable materials versus
required specifications reached by current
materials).
• Strategic and managerial barriers: the
management is not aware, lack
commitment and do not incentivise eco-
design. This means that it does not make
resources available to support the
process, i.e. avoids investing into eco-
design. Furthermore, it does not set long-
term strategic goals and does not translate
those into operational measures. Besides,
a missing innovation culture within the
company is hampering eco-design.
Furthermore, sales and marketing decides
over product innovation cycles in order to
push sales which does not leave room and
time for more radical innovations.
• Economic barriers: the lack of
knowledge and competences means that
you have to invest in building up this
competences or buying external
consulting services. Furthermore, the
planning efforts increase, i.e. you have to
change internal processes, reorganize
internal structures and integrate additional
steps and methods into the design
process which leads to additional costs
(personnel, time).
“We can’t just impose sustainability on an
existing product platform. It would require
major changes in the entire platform
production and supply chain.”
(Anonymous, 2017a)
Companies do not know how to get that
initial investment back. ”There is a lack of
knowledge about how design, particularly
eco-design, can benefit companies and
how it could be used to their advantage.”
(Noor-Ilander, 2016) Moreover, it is tricky
to convince partners along the value and
supply chain to change their mind sets,
processes and behaviour. Furthermore,
companies fear lower turn-over in case
they increase longevity and reparability of
the product, i.e. current linear business
models do not support eco-designed
products. On top of that, lower economies
of scale and a potential increase in
production costs through reshoring
production to high-income countries may
increase overall costs. Also “green”
materials might be more costly and the
economic benefit of recycled materials is
marginal compared to virgin materials.
Overall, “green” products tend to be more
costly at the beginning.
• Customer demand and sales:
Customers are not necessarily willing to
pay a higher prices for green products,
and might question the environmental
benefit. Overall, the demand for
environmental sustainable products is low.
Furthermore, customers tend to perceive
“green” products as of lower functionality,
performance and aesthetics or might
misinterpret the sustainable features (e.g.
lower power is perceived as lower
performance and not as lower energy
demand). That means single sustainable
alternative products or a product range in
the companies’ product portfolio are tricky
to sell and market because the other
“normal” products of that company might
be perceived as being not sustainable or
inferior.
“Even with evidence for a niche market
demand [for sustainable products], our
developer think and design in global
market terms.” (Anonymous, 2017a)
• All those aspects make it more difficult to
communicate the sustainable features of a
product. Furthermore, vendors might not
have the relevant information or
information is simply not passed on to the
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3rd PLATE Conference Berlin, Germany, 18-20 September 2019
Marwede M., Wagner E., Jäger-Erben M.
Hide and seek – a systemic approach to sustainability in product
development
customer. Or, retailers might simply not
include environmental sustainable
products in the product range, which
means that there is no “alternative”
available during the purchase decision.
• Policy barriers: Complex and fast
changing policies as well as unawareness
of and uncertainty regarding existing
policies hamper sustainable product
development. There is limited market
surveillance for minimal legal
requirements, which gives an advantage
to those which not follow the rules.
Furthermore, there is a lack of public
funding sources for sustainable product
development, for example technology
development funding schemes do usually
not address sustainability. Besides, the
multitude of labels are hard to grasp for
consumers.
The different categories show that it needs a
systemic understanding in order to facilitate
and enable eco-design in companies.
The attempt of a systematic
understanding – favourable
conditions for eco-design
Figure 1Fehler! Verweisquelle konnte nicht
gefunden werden. illustrates the variables
influencing the integration of eco-design
processes into a company, which was
developed by the research team on the basis
of the results of (Graulich et al., 2017;
Marwede et al., 2019; Maurer, 2018):
First of all, relevant agents inside the
organisation as well as the production networks
(e.g. manager or product developer) has to
have the knowledge and the know-how, in
particular
• strategic know-how: definition of a eco-
design strategy and goals, thorough
knowledge of the existing business, good
abilities to strategically rethink business
models and a good understanding of
sustainability concerns which enable
anticipation of regulation and public
opinion
• operational know-how about eco-design
tools to use, where to find relevant data,
how to engineer technical solutions e.g.
for the accessibility of components, and
• system level understanding e.g. life-cycle-
thinking, network analysis and complexity
reduction.
According to (Jalas, 2016) the skills one would
need to have for an integrated eco-design
approach are a “thorough knowledge of the
existing business, good abilities to strategically
rethink business models and a good
understanding of sustainability concerns which
enable anticipation of regulation and public
opinion”
Furthermore, the intrinsic motivation, values
and meanings of employees and company
stakeholder e.g. the willingness to learn and
change, conviction to the idea of sustainability
and transformation of the company’s practices
etc. is an important prerequisite for the
integration of sustainability into the company’s
practices, i.e. to take risks, invest, translate
barriers into challenges and chances, find new
solutions, and to be eco-innovative. It is
especially important to communicate the values
internally to the employees and externally to
your customers, partners and stakeholders.
“I think that it (eco-design) can be definitely a
tool to bring competitive advantages to
products today it is seen for many project
owner as a constraints more than a business
driver so they think about that as cost which is
a shame but we need to change we need to
make the people change” (Anonymous, 2017b)
To conclude, if the individual has the know-
how, the resources and the legitimacy, s/he has
the power to alter practices and processes
within her or his sphere of influence, such as
• Strategic processes: Decision processes
are fast and flexible and environmental
responsibility is built into the decisions
making. Development of an ambitioned
environmental management strategy
together with internal and external
stakeholders and translation of this
strategy into clear operational goals and
definition of performance indicators to
measure the level of success which go
beyond pure economic indicators, for
example development of new skills,
creating new contacts, increase of
employee or customer satisfaction, or
environmental and social benefits for
stakeholders. Business developers are
able to create a business case, e.g. by
developing new business models such as
product-service-systems. The business
case behind the product is crucial, which
means that it is fit to market, i.e. eco-
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